Naruto: Renegade Cause
by elorielee
Summary: Learning that the people of Konoha despised him for having a demon sealed within him, Naruto's dream of becoming Hokage turned to ashes, for the Sandaime had informed him that the Hokage must love and care for the people of the village, and he could not care for those who hated for no good reason. It was time for a new dream. Featuring smart, snarky and sneaky ninja.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Waking Up With a New Dream

When I wake up, it's always sudden and complete. I've heard people complaining about mornings, but never quite understood why. In fact, I hold a deep and abiding envy for people who can sleep a lot, let alone sleep in. Only needing two to four hours of sleep a night at the very most leaves me with way too much time on my hands.

This morning I lay in bed for a few extra minutes, recalling all too well the events of yesterday. Now officially a genin ninja of Konohagakure, I also knew why everyone hated me, why I could barely manage to buy food for myself at highly inflated prices, why I couldn't buy clothes or ninja tools, why everything I bought was of terrible quality or spoiled, why everyone called me 'demon'. It was because the Yondaime Hokage, the fourth leader of the ninja village of the Hidden Leaf, had sealed a rampaging demon, the nine-tailed demon fox, into me when I was a baby.

Yesterday, I'd been numb to the news, scarcely capable of believing, let alone digesting. Now? Now I was angry, a cold and harsh anger unlike the fiery rage I'd felt upon occasion. It wasn't difficult to come to the conclusion that I now hated Konoha and almost everyone in it. Only five people acknowledged me as anything other than a nuisance or a menace, and the Hokage was probably not a true friend. He certainly had the power to do more than merely permit me to exist, and the ability to take care of me when I needed it most.

Iruka had stepped between me and danger of his own free will, so he was probably worthy of some trust. Teuchi and Ayame were the only reason I wasn't starving, they'd actually fed me for free sometimes. Konohamaru was amusing, really, and I could understand his feelings. Anyone else? I decided that I probably didn't care much about them, which meant that my ambition to be Hokage was no longer the burning drive it so recently was. So I needed a new ambition and dream, something to direct my drive and determination towards, and the only thing I could come up with offhand was becoming the greatest ninja ever and creating my own ninja clan, maybe my own ninja village that would be so much better than the false dream that Konoha was. Having a real family would be nice. The thoughtful frown I saw in the cracked mirror would have sent my classmates and teachers into paroxysms of laughter - after all, Naruto the moron, actually thinking? With a firm nod, I decided to settle on those two goals for now, and to keep the second a big secret.

Of course, that wasn't everything that took place yesterday. The traitor Mizuki, formerly one of the sensei at the ninja academy, had taken me aside after my failure to graduate - the clone technique was one of the basic three every academy ninja was supposed to learn, it conjured an illusionary version of you for deceptive purposes, and I simply could not perform it. Like the second basic jutsu, the transformation, it was the gateway to the studying the realm of illusion, the art of genjutsu. It took me a long time to realize that I'd also failed to master the transformation jutsu they taught in the academy. What I did was a true transformation, shapeshifting rather than mere illusion, and maintaining it was effortless. It was the transformation which improved my lifestyle enormously, allowing me to buy stuff for normal prices and take advantage of discounts, especially in the form of a pretty, innocent young girl. It was also the source of the pervert-defeating jutsu I'd come up with, the sexy technique, which I'd used to defeat old man Hokage and steal the scroll of forbidden seals for Mizuki, after he told me that was an alternative to graduation. I'd actually been naive enough to believe that they wouldn't give up on an awesome ninja like Naruto Uzumaki!

It all turned out well in the end, with Mizuki dead at the hands of a multitude of my shadow clones, the solid clone jutsu I'd learned from the forbidden scroll, and Iruka letting me graduate. I even had my shadow clones, which appeared with a copy of the scroll, go off and make a copy for me on the sly. The time for me to follow the rules of Konoha was gone, and they'd learn the price for making me a scapegoat.

Getting out of bed with a determined stride, I quickly heated up some ramen, drank my milk, and started going over the contents of the forbidden scroll.

It was scary. It was glorious. It opened my eyes to a future full of possibilities. My dream of being the greatest ninja ever was potentially closer than ever and no longer merely a dream.

I started with the shadow clone jutsu I'd already learned to perform, and read through it properly. While the scroll stated that they were terribly expensive in chakra, each one created taking an equal portion of the creator's entire stores, that was not the way it felt to me. Making a few hundred of them yesterday wasn't a significant drain. I shrugged, deciding that much like my true transformation, it was probably something I could do because I was a jinchuriki, a demon container. There was much more to shadow clones, however. What made them special was not just the fact that they were a full and true copy of the original, if with limited chakra reserves, but that upon dissipating, the ninja received all the memories of what they experienced, which made them perfect for infiltration and spying. Their drawback was fragility, the ease with which the complex chakra matrix could be disrupted. It was a kinjutsu, a forbidden technique, for two reasons - the enormous chakra drain it placed upon the user, which made it a jounin level A-ranked jutsu, and the memory feedback, too much of which could make a person's brain explode. I could use it to train, but I had to be careful not to overdo it.

Of course, maybe I was different there, too - the hundreds of clones I'd popped out yesterday had dealt me no damage, not even a headache, when they dissipated. If it worked out, this alone was a training method that could make me a matchless ninja in all fields. All I'd have to do was improve my body, the clones could do the rest. Especially if I could make them tougher, a team of them could easily take down even a far more powerful ninja, and they could throw out many powerful jutsu… as soon as I learned any. Other than true transformation, my sexy jutsu and shadow clones, all I knew was the body replacement jutsu, the third of the academy three, which let you exchange yourself with an object. It was actually a really useful one in battle, a true life-saver.

I'd actually gotten lucky, for once, a few years ago - before I learned to transform. When one of the teachers maliciously destroyed my school books and I went to buy another copy of the academy books old man Hokage originally gave me, the nasty salesman overcharged me for a particularly tattered set, which proved to be books for the older curriculum, the wartime academy training. That one actually included a whole lot more knowledge and useful stuff, even including a large number of low level jutsus as well as minor chakra exercises that were really useful. How to light a fire with a basic fire jutsu, how to recharge a battery with lightning element jutsu, how to soften the earth for comfortable sleeping camp, how to remove your scent to avoid being tracked and how to protect yourself from disgusting smells, how to purify water and clean stuff with chakra, all sorts of small but really useful stuff. There was even something for girls, how to keep their monthlies in check to avoid getting bloody in the field or get pregnant.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get any of them to work, despite the really good and simple instructions. I'd gotten badly hurt trying a couple of them, so I stopped and concentrated on what I could do, mastering the body replacement and transformation until I could trigger them without hand signs or a word. I'd even learned how to replace myself with a chakra construct rather than a real log, which was sort of like a short range teleportation, and the second level of replacement, which combined it with a transformation - convincing whoever attacked you that they'd killed the log-me.

It was all about chakra control, I realized a couple of years ago, and I simply didn't have enough - or rather, with a demon imprisoned in me, I just had too much chakra to use the small amounts genin normally spent on the genin-level jutsus. Maybe with shadow clones working on it, I'd be able to get somewhere.

Of course, shadow clones were just the beginning of what the forbidden scroll had. It contained a few offshoots of the shadow clone jutsu, the great clone explosion, which sounded really neat, and the shadow kunai and shuriken jutsus, which turned a single thrown weapon into a blizzard of steel. Those were definitely the first techniques I was going to learn!

After reading and memorizing the three techniques, I made a hundred clones to go and practice the shadow kunai and shuriken jutsus. The great explosion I'd have to work on myself, as it wasted the clones.

With what I already mostly knew done with, I went back to the beginning of the scroll, deciding not to create clones to help me with it. I needed something to do with my time, after all, as there were still more than six hours until we were supposed to report to the academy for team assignments.

Unfortunately, most of the techniques were things I barely understood, especially where I began reading. Very complicated sealing works, they mostly were. A seal that somehow gathered natural chakra, whatever that was, and converted it to electricity. A high level blood and chakra keyed security seal that produced a genjutsu that hid an area. An absolute privacy seal. A locking seal, again keyed to blood and chakra. A seal that kept any technique from getting through a wall or door and fortified the object against physical attacks and a supremely discreet alarm seal. A chakra suppression seal, applied to prisoners. Three demon-sealing methods and four types of high level barrier seals, all of which required a minimum of three ninja with jonin-level chakra reserves. Nine absolutely terrifying suicide techniques that included a final vengeance component against an individual or an area, a full four of them supposedly doing something bad to your soul. Twenty six S-ranked elemental techniques of frightening potency, army destroyers ranging from the formation of a tidal wave or a water-kraken or a whirlwind made of fire, to the calling down of the fragment of a star from beyond the skies, attempting to raise a volcano, produce an earthquake, create a contagious all-consuming fire, turn the air into deadly poison and other equally fun things. The mere thought of what most of those could do made me sick in the stomach.

Then there were two teleportation techniques, the pulse step and the flying thunder god - the last of which was apparently invented by the Nidaime Hokage, only to later be made famous by the Yondaime. A bloodline stealing technique was followed by several medical kinjutsu for the stealing of limbs, internal organs and eyes. It was rather horrifying, if far from the worst. The worst were techniques for summoning and binding demons, including advice for breeding them for bloodline abilities.

I stopped reading to run over to the bathroom and throw up, washing my face and taking a shower before going back to reading, suppressing the urge to just burn the scroll. The fact that there was so little security on it made me feel ill, and I lost absolutely all confidence in the old man. If the Sandaime couldn't keep something like this safe, he didn't deserve to wear the Hokage's hat. Hopefully, its theft would wake him up.

After reading about a kinjutsu that allowed you to steal the souls of the dead and enslave them in sacrificed bodies, I took a ramen break. Trying hard not to shiver and rubbing my stomach to help digestion and keep from wasting more ramen, I went back to reading, this time about a seal that kept anyone in the area from using chakra, a disintegration seal and a third seal that extinguished all life. There was a footnote describing similar, if lesser, techniques to paralyze or knock out people inside the confines of a five corner seal. The next jutsus dealt with creating a deadly plague and a slow acting deadly poison that could be applied to a settlement's water supply. The one after that was more interesting, a complicated seal that eroded structural integrity over time, with the whole thing appearing perfectly fine and collapsing at a pre-determined point. There was a high level and supposedly very efficient chakra storage seal, followed by a rather frightening slave-seal attuned to a master's chakra, which prevented the slave from acting against the master and slowly fostered loyalty, also allowing the master to cause pleasure and pain, and always know where the slave was. I figured that last part would teach me how to create a tracking seal when I learned to separate the nuances of sealing functions. Next were all sorts of memory seals which I didn't quite understand, and instructions on how to open the Eight Gates, removing limitations on the flow of chakra through your body - empowering it considerably but damaging it badly. Opening the final gate made you more powerful than a kage, but resulted in certain death. There were also several high level genjutsu, including the bringer of night which blinded foes, the bound eyes which brought out negative feeling and allowed you to direct the anger of foes, and the soulbane, which made you believe everyone was a deadly enemy and removed all memories of your actions while it was directed against you. Since I had no real defense against genjutsu, learning a seal that would protect me from it became a sudden priority.

Despite having skimmed over eighty percent of the scroll and still having over two hours left, I felt the need for a break. I called up a shadow clone and dismissed it, reeling as over four hundred hours of memories slammed into me. "Urgh…" I groaned, leaning against the table as I sorted the memories through a haze of pain. Ten minutes later, after more ramen and another glass of milk, I was feeling much better, especially since it worked. I could now use the shadow shuriken and shadow kunai jutsus.

Still, training like this was obviously dangerous. From now on, I'd digest no more than fifty hours of memories at a time, I determined. Each group of ten clones would train for no more than five hours, accordingly - each clone making a replacement before it faded, until there was no more chakra to spend.

Having decided to try and train like this, at least for now, I dressed and ran off to the edge of the forest, before calling up clones in groups of ten. It took a bit of experimenting before I managed to judge exactly how much chakra that took, but I got it soon enough. The first ten groups I sent off to practice chakra control, with the next five working on perfecting and increasing the speed of hand signs, the mnemonics used to channel chakra into jutsu together with the shouted name. Truly mastering a jutsu let you do it with gradually fewer signs or at the utmost level without either, but even then, calling out the name and using the hand signs made it more powerful and controlled. Thus far, I'd only mastered the transformation and replacement jutsus, but with shadow clones, I had every intention of absolutely mastering every jutsu I learned. Accordingly, five groups of ten went off to master the new shadow jutsus.

The older academy books included only the basics of elemental manipulation, the leaf exercise. Cutting it for wind, soaking it for water, burning it for fire, crinkling for lightning and dusting it for earth. I sent two groups of ten to work on each exercise, figuring that learning to work with elemental chakra more easily and eventually instinctively transforming my chakra into elemental-aspected chakra would help me master the low rank jutsus and minor exercises the books provided for students. It went to show just how much lower the requirements were in peacetime, as wartime genin all graduated with at least one elemental jutsu learned. The books included details of over twenty and all of them were really useful, though admittedly not terribly powerful. Learning the camping and comfort exercises would also be particularly nice, as they made life so much easier. With ten groups practicing the leaf exercises for elemental manipulation, the next four groups of ten were assigned to work on stealth and awareness. They would creep around in the forest, trying to surprise each other - a touch on an unaware clone was victory. Sensing chakra was a vital skill for a ninja, and one that I'd never managed to develop - hopefully this sort of tag game would help there. Another four groups went off to practice taijutsu. While I knew the academy style pretty well, I didn't get to spar much, and I really needed more experience. Hopefully, the clones would be careful and avoid popping each other.

Another more advanced subject the wartime books covered was sealing. I'd read about some of what high level sealing could do, and I knew that it was one subject I really needed to cover. The Yondaime's infamous flying thunder god was seal-based, for example, and it was another army destroying jutsu - though a choosy one, unlikely the indiscriminate destruction offered by many other S-ranked jutsus. The books I had included the basics for storage seals and explosive tags, as well as some more general theory. Most importantly, for sealing I needed absolute control of the medium, that is to say perfect calligraphy. Perhaps later I'd control the ink directly or use something else, but for the basics and for now, there was no substitute available. The last twelve groups I sent off to practice handwriting, as pathetic as that was.

Sealing seemed to be the most powerful of the arts of the ninja, and I had every intention of mastering it. The history section mentioned that there weren't many seal masters, which made it even more important, as a rare skill would prove a surprise to most. The Yondaime had been incredibly young when he won the third shinobi world war for Konoha with his sealing mastery, and died not much older. I couldn't really imagine how much better he would have gotten had he lived, so really, he was the one to surpass, and I could best do that by mastering seals. The Yondaime, my former idol, was now tarnished by the sacrifice he'd foisted on me and his lack of forethought in offering me any sort of protection. For all that, earning a 'flee on sight' order in the bingo books and earning SS-rank while at little more than twenty years old was seriously impressive.

I made absolutely sure to number the teams, so they knew in which order to conjure a replacement and dispel. I had enough people who wanted to kill me, there was no need to blow up my own brains through sheer overload of stupidity.

The list of what I needed to learn and improve was ridiculously long, and reading the forbidden scroll showed that there were many things I needed to prepare to face against, most especially poison, genjutsu and area-destruction jutsu, and those very frightening seals which could spell instant defeat. Shadow clones were one solution to many obstacles and dangers, but they might not always work or be enough. However difficult it was, I knew that I would prevail, I felt it in my heart. There was no give in Naruto Uzumaki!

For the next two hours, I just ran around Konoha. I needed to build up my body, only I wasn't entirely sure how to do that. Simply running was getting to be too easy nowadays, even running at full speed without using my bloodline didn't really tire me. I was also one of the shortest in class, but I didn't know what to do about that either. I sent five groups of clones to Konoha's public library, hoping to find answers to those questions, and to questions I'd never thought to ask.

A quick shower, a stop at Ichiraku for proper breakfast, and for once I was on time for the academy. Didn't want to miss meeting my team!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Lack of Teamwork

Perhaps missing the meeting with my team would not have been so bad.

Sasuke as a teammate wasn't as bad as it could have been. He had basic competence, so I didn't need to worry about him, though I certainly couldn't trust that block of ice and bile to watch my back. Fortunately, with shadow clones, I hoped never to need him. Certainly, my hope for making lasting bonds and true friends on my team was dashed. Especially given that Sakura was my last teammate.

Sakura was actually my first friend. In our first year in the academy, I rescued her from some bullies, and knowing that everyone hated me, asked her not to tell anyone that I was her friend. I was actually quite cunning about it, paying her with real money for teaching me how to read and write properly, and making it seem that it would be too embarrassing for me if anyone were to learn about it, so she mustn't tell. It lasted for a month before word got back to her family, but having a friend had been one of the highlights of my life. The betrayal also taught me not to try again. It was quite the painful episode, especially since I missed her enough that I hurt myself by trying to get close to her again for another three months before giving up.

On the plus side, having Sakura on my team meant that I'd have a real chance to arrange for her to die painfully, I smiled brightly at the oblivious girl as we waited for our sensei to arrive. And waited, and waited, for hours. I spent the time constructively, alternately walking around the classroom on my hands (including jumping on chairs and desks) and juggling shuriken, ignoring the looks of derision sent my way from my two teammates. There was only so much time, and wasting it by sitting behind a desk instead of training was simply stupid.

Finally, almost three hours after everyone else left, with the clones done dispelling in the day's first wave of experience, the door opened. I didn't bother to look, having graduated to jumping up and down on fingertips alone.

"Ahem, my first impression, one of you is crazy and the rest of you are lazy. Meet me on the roof in five minutes," he said. The clone I'd hidden near the entrance dispelled, and I learned that our jounin sensei was a tall man with silver hair who wore a mask, with only one eye exposed. He'd disappeared in a body flicker, a low level jutsu that allowed for quick travel via high speed. He'd only used a single hand sign for it, the ram, and while not an Uchiha with an active copy-wheel-eye, the jutsu stealing Sharingan, I decided to see if I could copy it merely from learning the hand sign used. After all, I'd had little more to go on with most of the jutsus I'd learned in the past, and with the swift release bloodline, speed was in my blood. I also healed incredibly fast and perfectly, which was either another bloodline, the influence of the Kyuubi sealed in me, or possibly both. After all, demons were apparently the source of bloodlines.

I followed the others to the rooftop, wondering what being on a team would be like and if our sensei would actually teach us anything. Would he, like the teachers in the academy, make sure I didn't learn anything right? Or possibly just not teach me anything? With the speed I was learning what jutsus and exercises I had access to, it would not be long before I'd need more study material, and there wasn't really much of anything on the forbidden scroll I could learn that I hadn't already learned. Make that anything at all, I pursed my lips in disappointment. I'd need to be a sealing master with perfect chakra control, possess multiple elemental affinities (or at least training) and be a high level medic to learn everything on it, and there were several jutsus and seals I simply did not want to and had no intention of ever learning.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence once we joined him on the roof, before he rose to his feet and said, "Okay, it's time to start with introductions."

"What do you want to know?" Sakura inquired, brow furrowing in deep thought. It was telling the the kunoichi of the year didn't even understand what an introduction meant.

"How about your likes, dislikes, dreams of the future. Hobbies and stuff like that," he waved his hands.

"Why don't you start and show us how it's done?" Sakura suggested, nibbling on her lower lip in a rather fetching manner. She might have been as flat as a board, but she had a rather pretty face.

"Oh, me? I'm Kakashi Hatake. I have no desire to tell you guys about my likes or dislikes. Dreams for the future...? Well, I have a lot of hobbies. Now it's your turn, from the right," he pointed at me.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki. I like ramen and I dislike hateful and lazy people. When I dream about the future, well, I always forget when I wake up. My hobbies are training and pranking," I added after a bit of thought. I had no intention of sharing my actual dreams, as I was quite certain he'd frown on the one that had Konoha burning away slowly to ashes, along with everyone in it.

"What about your ambition to be Hokage?" Sakura piped up.

"What about it?" I looked at her quizzically. It wasn't like I didn't have a lot of experience in looking stupid.

"Next," Kakashi pointed at Sasuke when the silence stretched.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. There are tons of things I dislike, and I don't really like anything. As for my dream… I have an ambition. The resurrection of my clan and to kill a certain man."

Sakura's dreamy face at the utterance was almost enough to make me laugh out loud. Perhaps the purpose of Kakashi's mask was to avoid having people read his expressions.

"Okay. And finally, the girl."

"I'm Sakura Haruno. The thing I like is… well the person…," her eyes slid over to Sasuke. "Should I say my dream for the future?" her cheeks reddened. "Yatta! I dislike Ino-pig! My hobby is…"

"Okay, that's enough of that. We will start our duties tomorrow. First, we are going to do something with just the four of us. A survival exercise."

"Why is training our duty?" Sasuke inquired, and Sakura's voice rose, "We did enough of that in the academy!"

"I'm your opponent, and this isn't normal training," he gave a laugh.

"What's so funny, sensei?" Sakura asked, looking pissed.

"Your reactions will be. You see, out of twenty seven graduates, only nine will be chosen as genin. This training is very difficult, and the failure rate of the exam is two thirds."

Okay, he was right, their reactions were pretty funny. As for me, I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to pass the exam, as the idea of fighting for Konoha left me sour. In addition, our would-be sensei seemed lazy, untrustworthy, had no respect for us… did I really want to be stuck with him? And the two annoying idiots? On the other hand, was there a real possibility of him not passing the team with the Last Uchiha? And my dream was to be a ninja, how could I accomplish that without passing? I contributed my own grimace, if a trifle late.

"Ha, you should your faces. Anyway, see you tomorrow in training field seven at eight. Here, see this printout," he handed us a page. "Bring all your shinobi tools. Oh, and you might want to skip breakfast or you'll throw up."

Just like that, he was gone with a swirl of leaves, the tell-tale sign of the body flicker. I waited for Sakura and Sasuke to leave, snickering quietly as he ignored her request for a date, before jumping off the roof, reinforcing my legs with chakra and flexing them just right, something one of my clones had managed by panicked accident during awareness training when another clone poked him on the back, startling him into falling off a tree branch he'd clung to. Just five hours of training with four hundred clones, and I was already reaping benefits. They'd taken proper care to have every group dispel in intervals of at least a minute, and I figured the next batch could wait half that much, since that was about how long it took to incorporate fifty hours.

I was on my way to Ichiraku's to eat some Kami-blessed ramen, walking slowly and thoughtfully, when the fifty library clones began dispelling. Once they did and the memories settled in, I hit my head against a tree-trunk a couple of times, ignoring the whispers of "Crazy demon".

One of the books my clones had read through in the library was "Nutrition for Physical Fitness and the Developing Body" and it turned out that ramen was probably part of my problem. I needed a more balanced diet, it appeared, with… yucky vegetables and more fruit and fiber and other weird stuff. I popped out a clone to buy some writing material and go prepare the weekly meal schedule the book recommended. More than that, a number of clones had read about edible plants, poisonous plants, agriculture and hunting. There was no reason to buy anything when my clones could hunt, gather, tend fields and cook. It probably wouldn't be as good as instant ramen at the start, but if I learned to cook well… I didn't expect anything I made to be as good as Ichiraku ramen, but since I only had the money to stop there thrice a week, I had no intention of eating less of that divine food.

Besides plants and food, my clones had also boned up on geography and some history. Geography would be useful for missions, history for learning from other peoples mistakes and what worked. I didn't read very quickly, so my clones didn't either, but I had learned the memory tricks ninja used, so what I picked as useful was memorized and would always be there when I needed it, from the description and illustration of five simple snares used to catch small game to the appearance and uses of belladonna.

With a minimum of four hundred clones working day and night, I wondered briefly if I was going to feel old in a few weeks, as I received more than a year's worth of memories every single day. Ayame noticed that I was distracted, one of the ramen bowls almost cooling before I slurped it up, but was easily convinced that I was worried about tomorrow's graduation test, which I actually should be worried about, however far it was from the top of my list of concerns.

Praising the ramen with a bit more vocabulary than usual, I complimented Ayame on how pretty she looked with her cheeks pink, slapped enough ryo to cover the meal and a bit more from the sadly depleted gama-chan, my frog-wallet, promised to see her again in a couple of days, and ran off before Teuchi could react. Her father could be a bit crotchety as times, but Ayame was a sweetheart.

Reluctantly and slowly, I made my way back to the apartment, popping off a few clones to look at the inventory of shinobi-supply stores to see if there was anything I could use. There was no putting it off, I needed to finish reading the scroll. Surprisingly, the remainder wasn't that bad. A lot of it was Mokuton jutsus of the Shodaime Hokage's wood-release bloodline, then advanced water techniques of the Nidaime Hokage, some of which were rather gross, as well as tricks and shortcuts for water mastery. It turns out that blood is a liquid that really advanced water techniques could affect, for some really unpleasant results. More interesting was the blood clone, which was almost as good as the originating shinobi, depending on the amount of blood used, and there was also a sneaky water jutsu that somehow affected the water in the head, similar to sea-sickness, disrupting the target's sense of balance and causing dizziness and nausea. There was also notes on some nasty poisons and their antidotes, and a really frightening seal called the Mouth of Oblivion, which opened a tear to otherwhere and sucked someone unfortunate to some unknown place postulated mathematically - the notations were utter gibberish, the speculation outlandish. Something about tears in the space-time continuum and relativity jumps, reality mirrors and limit breaks. The nature of existence was apparently too complicated for me to understand. A much easier and very much lesser example provided under the notations was a stasis containment seal for human prisoners or dying comrades, to hold them for direct and immediate delivery to the hospital or the nearest medic-nin.

Finally done with that work, I made a clone to practice making a blood and chakra sealed storage seal, so I could hide my copies of the scrolls in a few safe places no one else could get it out of. Remembering my earlier speculation about mastering the body flicker, I made another five groups to go and try it, then started pondering about how to find sources for more information. I had a feeling that I'd master everything I reasonably could and drain the library in a month, at the very most, so I needed a source for more jutsu scrolls, sealing books and advanced chakra exercises. There was ANBU headquarters, the Hokage's private library, the libraries of clans and individual shinobi families and jounin… and the hospital. I remembered reading that medical and genjutsu required the most chakra control, so the hospital would be good for that, as they presumably had training courses and manuals. There was also nothing wrong with actually learning the medical jutsus, especially if I could figure out how bloodlines worked and how to copy them. I put that on the list of goals, having not just a great clan, but a kickass clan with lots of bloodline abilities. Speaking of clan libraries… the Uchiha were best known as the greatest jutsu-thieves in the elemental nations, and there was just one Uchiha left to guard that treasure trove - I hoped. Tomorrow, I'd sneak some insect clones on him with minimal chakra signatures and investigate. For now, I sent two groups off to scout the hospital and see what they could come up with, as I suspected that the other sources were beyond my infiltration abilities, secure behind seals I could not overcome - as of yet.

There was also the matter of money. Now that I was a genin, there was no more orphan stipend. Kakashi probably wouldn't take us on many missions, and most of the money would go to him in any case. Even with clones getting most of my food, I had no choice but to spend some money on rent, ninja tools, scrolls and sealing ink, Ichiraku and so on and so forth. I knew exactly which stores refused to serve me and which overcharged me only to provide me with bottom quality goods, having methodically tried all of them without shifting to an innocuous form, and checked out every new one as well - with every intention of continuing that practice. There was the moral question of stealing, and I found that I didn't really have any objection.

After swallowing my qualms, more about the dangers involved in getting caught, I popped two teams of clones, each to pick one rich target that hated me in turn, and fleece them of anything and everything they could get. The personal storage seals would also be useful for holding my money and more important possessions, naturally.

I almost jumped when a clone physically returned, dropping a bag with on the kitchen table with a loud metallic clink, and dissipated. The memories returned with the answer to my question about increasing physical abilities - chakra weights and a special harness to distribute the strain, freshly stolen from right under the nose of one of the more unpleasant storekeepers. These were the special and most expensive type, small and thin discs of chakra conductive metal carved with seals, that grew heavier the more chakra you channeled into them - with no real upper limit that was practical for others. Taking off my jumpsuit, I put the harness on, and then the light black silk and chain-mesh armor garments the clones had also stolen, very carefully putting the smallest amount of chakra I could into the weights, directing it into the harness, which supposedly 'knew' exactly what balance of weight would be most beneficial for me.

Moving around was quite difficult at first, which was the purpose of it of course, and I had to channel chakra to my limbs to walk off to the training ground seven, then to my chest to keep my breathing from being disrupted by the increased weight on my lungs and heart. For the rest of the day, I went through the Dancing Leaf forms and katas, the academy taijutsu style which I'd learned well despite the instructors' attempts to sabotage me, sparred with clones and ran a few laps around Konoha, stopping four times for a clone-fetched meal, working through digesting two rounds of memory feedbacks. It was very dark by the time I got back to the apartment, but I made sure to set the timer before a quick shower. More exhausted than usual with the new and much harsher training regimen, I dropped off to bed, making a mental note that I needed a better mattress.

Waking up very much refreshed, I ate a lavish clone-provided breakfast, sealed up a few sandwiches for later snacks, got dressed and refreshed the clone contingent, increasing the number to an even five hundred. Before sleeping, I'd had a clone let all the others know not to disrupt until I woke up and let them know it was time to dispel, and prior to making another bunch, I tested out the improvements in my capabilities.

To my surprise, body flicker was now within my capabilities. Oh, I needed to concentrate to avoid going the wrong way or running into a wall or a tree, and I was a long way from mastering it, but I could actually do it with a couple of seconds' concentration. Furthermore, I'd absolutely mastered the leaf cutting exercise for wind, the crinkling for lightning and soaking it for water. The fire and earth were showing some advancement, with a bit of scorching and drying out, so I sent a couple of groups off to finish each. I didn't really know what the next raw elemental manipulation exercises were for wind, lightning and water, so I made up my own. For wind, I sent a couple of groups to cut through a rock this time. For water, I sent them to a stream to raise and compress some of the water into recognizable shapes. Lightning had me thinking for a couple of minutes, until I decided to simply copy the wind exercise, trying to drill through a rock or a piece of wood with lightning chakra, as well as charge and withdraw the charge from a battery and try to light a bulb and not burn it out. I sent off four groups for each, excited at the thought of learning actual elemental jutsus after the exercises became easy. Again, I sent ten groups off to practice chakra control, but using a new exercise since I'd run through all those I already knew, and they didn't require any effort so would no longer be of use - this time trying to use chakra threads, the ones I read about in the history books which dealt with the shinobi world wars, where the mention of Suna's puppet masters intrigued me. Controlling weapons at a distance without wires sounded cool, and maybe I could also write seals using them at a distance. Calligraphy was going well, and I sent four last groups to perfect it - it was good enough now for the common, easy seals, but a last bit of practice wouldn't do any harm. Awareness training had been a wild game of fun, so I sent ten groups off for that, adding traps to the mix, and another ten for taijutsu practice. However annoying it was when a clone accidentally burst and I got distracted by the sudden influx of memories, I noticed an actual improvement in my close combat ability - seeing the mistakes I was making and correcting them helped, and having sparring partners was also incredibly better than just working on my own.

That was enough for training purposes, and I renewed the two groups which focused on theft. They'd been very cautious, but had made some interesting discoveries. I also sent a group to copy the medical texts I'd located in the hospital, another group to keep overwatch over myself, and another two to practice the body flicker. Three more groups went off to the library, two to work on food and future food sources, and one to gather poisonous plants. My clones had only skimmed through the medical text for the shinobi med-nin program, but apparently it was possible to gain immunity to poisons through repeated exposure. I didn't think I was ever going to use poisons much in combat, seals were more my thing, but immunity to every poison I knew of was bound to come in useful, if not life-saving, and the knowledge of how to make poisons was unlikely to be wasted. If nothing else, I could teach others, and tell them how to acquire immunity - and provide them with the theory of its use, even if I didn't have the practice. Carrying antidotes around with me in stasis-locked storage seals was another good idea. With a sudden epiphany, I sent another two groups to check out the academy library. I was still a long way from perfecting the basics, and maybe I'd find some insights there.

Done with that, I ran off to the training ground, with the weights a bit increased from yesterday, as I planned to increase them every day. Not having anything to do other than train or prank meant that I did a lot of both, and since I'd promised the old man I wasn't going to do more pranks, only training was left. I was also eager to get more money, as the clones haunting the ninja supply stores had found more than just weights - there was also something called resistance seals, which increased the air's resistance to your movement. Using them increased your speed - unfortunately, the garments bearing them were out of reach financially, at least for the moment. Strength and speed were two things I couldn't train with clones, unlike reflexes and muscle memory.

I arrived at the training field a minute before the time Kakashi mentioned, and was hardly surprised when neither Sakura nor Sasuke offered me a greeting or made a comment about my new clothes. Ignoring them in turn, I worked on a chakra exercise I'd thought up on the way, taking a coin and making it roll over my hands and eventually the rest of my body, making it stick and move by using chakra. Metal was much harder than a leaf, and I already knew that using chakra was easiest through the hands, having completed the tree-walking and water-walking exercises mentioned in the wartime academy books. It was one of the reasons I got away from even jounin sometimes after a prank, none of them expected me to be over water or up on a treetop or a building's roof. Focusing chakra on just about every inch of my body took a lot of concentration, especially as I did it while running around the training ground with the weights on. The coin kept falling off, but I kept at it, making sure to run in the trees out of sight of the other two - I didn't need their heckling, the work was annoying enough as it was. When I managed it easily with one coin, I'd increase the number - or rather, my clones were going to. Surprisingly, I learned that the most difficult place to focus chakra through wasn't the feet, it was the crotch - there were some unpleasant tingles down there when I used too much chakra.

After a couple of hours, I stopped to eat a few sandwiches, biting my lips at the entreating looks Sakura sent me and Sasuke's dark gaze, accompanied as they were by the rumbling of their stomachs. Wordlessly, I simply went back to the exercise when I was done eating, a dispelling clone from the perimeter overwatch letting me know our Sensei was there - as did Sakura's loud shout of "You're LATE!" booming forth as I joined them.

"Good morning, guys. Now then," he placed an alarm clock on a stump after offering a nonsensical excuse for his arriving late, "this is set for noon. Your mission is to take these two bells from me before noon. Those who cannot get the bells by noon will get no lunch. I'll not only tie you to one of these stumps, I'll also eat right in front of you." I could tell that he was smiling, even behind the mask his posture was unmistakable. The sound of my teammates' empty stomachs rumbling was surprisingly loud.

"You only need to get one bell," he added. "There are only two, so one of you will definitely be tied to a stump. Oh, and the person who doesn't get a bell fails, so at least one of you will be sent back to the academy. You need to be serious about it, you won't succeed unless you come at me intending to kill."

"But you'll be in danger!" Sakura protested, and I managed not to nod agreement. His arrogance wasn't exactly baseless, even with everything I had I doubted I'd be more than an annoyance, unless he was totally careless. Still, this was the perfect time to try exploding clones, and the overwatch clones' most important task was to use the replacement jutsu with me if I was ever in danger. It was the best I could do until my awareness training bore more substantial fruit, and even then, shinobi could mask their chakra and intent. Several layers of defense against an ambush were definitely the sort of thing that would save lives.

"No need to worry, I am a jounin," he answered lazily, picked a pornographic novel out of his pouch, its orange cover distinctive, and started reading. "Well?" he asked without looking up. "Time is passing, you know."

Sakura and Sasuke quickly moved out of sight, as I tried to make a grouping of exploding clones, pushing a lot more chakra than usual into them as I did with the regular shadow clones, deliberately staying in the open. With the first explosion, I grinned at the successful jutsu test and made more and more of them, until I actually felt the drain, using the body flicker to get out of sight. My clones would get the bells, and with almost an hour, there was time enough for a stop at Ichiraku for ramen. I made a clone to let the guys know where to deliver the bells, and had them on my belt before the first heavenly bowl was ready.

I was happy to find that Ayame and Teuchi were receptive to amending their recipes when I mentioned the book on fitness and nutrition requirements, and we talked about new ramen taste tests until a clone let me know that there were only a couple of minutes before the timer rang. I also learned what Kakashi had done to them, taking out Sakura with a D-rank genjutsu and burying Sasuke up to his neck in the ground, chuckling softly as I made my way to the training ground.

The timer rang, and a couple of minutes later Kakashi dragged the two from the woods. Sakura looked like she'd rolled around on the ground, and Sasuke was somewhat roughed up, clumps of earth sticking to his clothes. Kakashi, on the other hand, looked like he'd walked out of an inferno, all blackened and decorated with soot, the exposed skin red and raw, clothes almost burned off, limping and favoring his right hand, with several wounds obviously made by kunai. He looked particularly amusing with his hair mostly burned away. Obviously, my exploding clones had done some damage, and they'd used the shadow kunai jutsu to some effect.

"Hey there!" I rang the bells in my hand as those on Sensei's belt disappeared in a puff of smoke, "Do I pass? Huh, just kidding," I swung them around, enjoying the chiming sound, and tossed one each to Sasuke and Sakura. Not having anything else to say, I simply turned my back to them and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" Kakashi demanded in a weird tone of voice.

"You said the one without a bell goes back to the academy, right?" I was getting bored with his nonsense.

"But you got both bells," he rebutted.

"Well, that was then. Now they have the bells, so I'm gone. Have a fun team!" I turned back to leave.

"You pass!" Kakashi announced loudly. Kami, for a shinobi he wasn't much of a liar. As though there were any two-man genin teams in Konoha, really. I was ashamed it took me that long to realize it.

"How the hell did you get the bells?" Sakura shouted. "You're the dead last, Sasuke should have gotten the bells. You cheater!"

"Thank you for the compliment, Sakura," I nodded graciously.

"Hn," Sasuke shot me a darker than usual look.

"That wasn't a compliment, loser!" she shouted yet again.

"Any ninja worthy of the name would take it as one," Kakashi interjected. "Shinobi fight to win, not by any rules. Cheating is expected and condoned. Now, I need to visit the hospital, we'll meet tomorrow on this training ground at eight. Later!" he waved at us before flickering away. Stepping out of Sasuke's line of sight - Sakura was already asking him for a date - I flickered away myself, heading home and popping out a clone whose almost immediate demise spread the news that I'd passed the test and was hungry.

Surprisingly, the clones who'd gathered and prepared food did a pretty good job of it, and when they popped, I realized that what I was eating was the ninth attempt - they'd taste-tested the prior ones and this was the very first feast that was more than merely edible. There was an awful lot of precise work involved in cooking, it turned out, but it was almost frightening, how quickly I was improving. The gathering of edible plants and hunting for meat was something even I managed to learn during the academy, though I had some ways yet to go before I was efficient at it. The spices, however, I'd had to buy - but I realized that I didn't mind. After all, soon it would be their money financing my shopping sprees.

There wasn't much more to the day. I worked myself hard with the chakra weights, driving myself to exhaustion. A pair of clones had to carry me home, but I was very satisfied. Everything was going even better than expected, I was improving with remarkable speed, I could almost feel the increased strength and better chakra control with every breath. Tomorrow I'd see if the shadow-insects left with Sasuke had found anything, and I was determined to learn and master all the war-academy jutsu and techniques in a single week, in addition to everything else I was working on. Small, discrete and achievable goals, each a marker on my way to being the best of them all. Despite the fatigue and the aching muscles, I went to sleep with a smile.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Sparring Partners

Going to sleep after wringing myself out, both physically and of chakra, seemed like a good idea in the soft light of early morning. I'd slept almost six hours, quite the record, and wasn't entirely sure, but felt that my chakra reserves were actually larger. Early on in the academy, we were supposed to get in touch with our chakra, the energy inside us, by concentrating or meditating. I didn't need to do either - I'd always felt it, it was always part of me and in reach. It was a long time before I figured out that I was different, that I healed much more quickly and never really grew tired or lacked for the energy others had to build up.

Once I managed to increase both my control and reserves and learn the medical jutsu that leached away fatigue, I'd be able to outfight anyone with sheer stamina alone. Ordinarily, it was held as a truism that three skilled genin could take on a chunin, three chunin a jounin, three jounin one of the elite, and three elite jounin could face a kage with at least a real possibility of victory. It wasn't just teamwork that supported that belief, but the finite supply of chakra everyone held. The ability to use chakra storage seals or somehow leach chakra from nature overturned that equation, and it was no wonder that such secrets were forbidden.

Of course, merely going by rank was a fallacy. A powerful jounin specialized in ninjutsu could fall to a chunin who mastered silent killing or genjutsu, any speciality could serve as a trump card under the right circumstances, and most ninja were weak in at least one field. As well, from my admittedly limited interaction with them, I felt that powerful ninja were generally too confident in their own strength when facing an unknown opponent or someone with a lower rank or distinctly lesser age, holding an easily exploitable arrogance. There was a reason I was hiding my skills and working to improve on all of them. With that thought, I added another smaller goal - gaining enough control to start studying genjutsu and medical techniques inside a month. Even with increasing reserves, a hundred clones working night and day on nothing but control made that target date realistic.

Eating a rather nice clone-prepared breakfast, I was somewhat disappointed that my theft groups hadn't actually stolen any money. Their plans were sound, their caution commendable, but I really wanted enough money to buy the vest with resistance seals and the other seals and books on offer in the shops, to see if I could learn anything from them. As well, I wanted to buy a few quality weapons and practice versions to round up my skills. Taijutsu specialists were at a reach disadvantage against weapons, and I'd read that you could use chakra through high quality weapon with specially tuned metal. From my tour of the shops, I determined to study the use of kodachi, the meteor hammer, the staff, tonfa and nunchaku. When I grew physically, the katana would join the list. Imagining a legion of armed clones, my lips curved, then my smile widened as the recollection of how samurai fought intruded. Not mounted combat, but the use of a bow. A hail of arrows that covered a large area was a potent weapon, especially when used from beyond the range ninja expected and from ambush. If I ever managed to learn and apply the bloodline stealing jutsu, the all-seeing Hyuuga eyes would make that ranged weapon incredibly deadly, especially if I managed to keep control of a missile at range.

After three last bites, I notified my clones that I was awake, and knowledge and experience began to stream in, and I settled in to digest more than just food. There was good news all around, and two surprises. One of my library clone forgot about dispelling earlier in the day, because he'd found accounts of the Uzumaki clan. Apparently, we used to have our own ninja village on an island southeast of wave, and were the Senju clan's allies, and thus Konoha's greatest allies. The first Hokage, Hashirama Senju, had a wife - and her name was Mito Uzumaki. The swirl on all Konoha uniforms was the Uzumaki mark, added in memory of their valiant fall during the second shinobi world war, where they held off Iwa, Kumo and Kiri - three of the great ninja villages, plus several lesser ones, taking down half their numbers in a three-day siege and guaranteeing Konoha's victory in the war. The Uzumaki were feared for their mastery of sealing, which explained my affinity for the subject, and for their unique chakra - possibly the reason I was chosen as vessel for the Kyuubi demon, and likely the secret behind the second surprise of the day.

When trying to use chakra threads as a control exercise and eventually for use in sealing and with weapons, what came out were not threads but chains, sapphire colored chakra chains that could rip trees and stone apart effortlessly. This was the perfect weapon for close ranged combat, even better than chakra-imbued weapons, capable of both restraining and killing, assuming the chains were as tough as I believe them to be. I'd never heard or read of anything of the sort before, so at a guess, this was a unique Uzumaki bloodline trait, and I had every intention of keeping it a secret until it was needed and I couldn't kill every witness of its use - which also meant that I had to practice it discreetly. Like every other weapon and technique, I had every intention of mastering it as far as I could, until its use was instinctive.

Disappointingly, the clones sent with Sasuke only came back with copies of a few dozen jutsus, not the library of hundreds and thousands I'd hoped for, and most of them were low ranking techniques, only ten B-rank jutsu and three A-ranks among them, with a notable focus on fire. I sent several clone groups to check out the security on ANBU, clan and Hokage libraries, and another few to check out the same on the homes of clanless jounin. I set sentries on the shinobi supply stores, to find out where they got the seals from, and sent a group to check the records on Uzumaki clan members in Konoha. With Mito married to a Senju, and with Tsunade away, cracking the security on the empty Senju estate would probably garner at least some insight into Uzumaki seals. I also set to find the Yondaime's legacy, as he was one of the most noted seal masters of recent times. Spying was a very shinobi-like activities, so this was good training even if nothing came of it.

Much like yesterday, I arrived at our training ground a few minutes before eight, finding both my teammates already there. I was slightly surprised that neither had made any comment about my new clothes yesterday, before realizing that any comments would have had to be positive, so they'd naturally refrained. Not bothering to show myself, I spent the next three hours repeating yesterday's regimen, running with heavy weights plus the coin moving control exercise. An annoying way to spend your time, but I knew that it would be worth it, and really, what else did I have to spend my time on?

Kakashi arrived three hours late, as was seemingly his wont, fully healed - or at least highly practiced in concealing injuries. He went off on all of us, 'explaining' that the purpose of yesterday's exam was to promote teamwork to achieve a mission one of us could not accomplish alone. The logic of that escaped me entirely, as expecting a new team of genin to have real teamwork and to willingly sacrifice for each other seemed like a recipe for failure. Then came a lecture about seeing beneath the underneath, as if ninja facing deception from others was a new concept, and the vital importance of teamwork, "Those who betray the mission are trash, those who betray their comrades are worse than trash." Hearing that from the hypocrite that had failed many aspiring and capable ninja and showed no respect to us, his true comrades, had me biting my lips to avoid a rude response. It struck me as meet, however, that the demon's sensei would be worse than trash, given the way Konoha treated me.

Then came the lovely introduction to D-rank missions, from babysitting to walking the Inuzuka dogs, repair work, buying groceries, clearing fields and putting up fences, painting walls and the funniest of all, catching the Daimyo's wife's cat. I made sure to always chase it up to Sasuke, so it could claw him up when he caught it.

The next couple of weeks developed into a routine of hard physical work, clone study and practice, and team-time annoyance and waste of time. Fortunately, Kakashi did not forbid the use of clones for the menial tasks, and I took to replacing myself with a clone for the most boring and idiotic chores, so the waste was minimal. I also made a habit of arriving three hours later than the indicated time, posting a clone alarm in case anything changed in our not-sensei's routine. Money came in, and practice was twice as hard with resistance seals, and clones were added to learn how the use of weapons. I used the weekends in a different manner, taking a couple of days off physical training to get used to moving quickly and using my full strength, training to use the incredible speed I now had, trying to use solidified-air or earth ramps to rapidly change direction. Eventually, I needed to find a way to change direction at will, but at the speeds I ran full-out with the swift release, that was going to take some work and creativity. I also had a couple of full-on battles with dozens of clones attacking me, which served to show how far I'd come. It also nearly got me killed facing off against combination jutsus and an unbroken array of deadly weapons only chakra chains got me out of, so from now on it was small teams only, with me using limited clone support. My teamwork with myself was developing very well, showing me how a team was actually supposed to work, but there was quite a way to go before it was perfect. There weren't many chunin in Konoha who could survive against a three-clone team, I was willing to wager, but just about any jounin could rip them to shreds unless caught by surprise - or foolishly underestimated them. In close range, chakra chains were an absolutely lethal weapon.

It eventually became enough of a routine that I was feeling a bit stifled and very lonely. In the academy, I'd at least had some human interaction and the fun of pranking. Now, with the team and sensei I had and my promise to the old man to stop pranking, I was bereft of fun and almost completely alone, other than the time I spent at Ichiraku's. I was also reaching a bit of a plateau, and wanted to see how my skills measure up against others.

Accordingly, I decided it was time to gain a sparring partner.

The only people I really knew, if not terribly well, were in my class. Obviously, Sasuke and Sakura were not even considered. I also discarded Shikamaru and Chouji for being too lazy and Kiba for being too unpleasant - he'd want to be top dog, and that wasn't in the running. Shino worked too differently for my sort of training to help him, or at least so I believed. That left only Ino and Hinata, and both were possibilities. Ino was vastly more annoying than even Kiba, her gossipy nature was a big problem, and most importantly, she was a weak fangirl. I didn't really know much about Hinata, other than the fact that she was the clan heir. The girl was so closed off and quiet, I'd probably exchanged more words last year with Shino or Sasuke. Of course, being quiet and shy were not bad qualities, but they did show that she had some sort of problem. Being much too nice for a Hyuuga, according to what everyone said, and never having done or said anything against me - both were in her favor. A nice, quiet girl was the perfect start to learning how to act around a girl, something important since I was trying to start a clan. Not that I had any illusion of my chances with her, but it would be good practice - and really, who knew? The Hyuuga main branch wasn't very large, even if it did hold some exceptional fighters. The branch house was held in virtual slavery by a much crueler seal than the slave seal described in the forbidden scroll. Put the caged bird seal on everyone in the main house and marry Hinata, and I'd be in control. It was certainly a plan to consider, a sneaky, nasty and entirely legal way to gain a clan. The largest, most powerful and richest clan in Konoha, at that.

Hinata won out on every point, and if it worked out, we'd see if Ino could be lured in to join us. That only left finding her, which wasn't very difficult with clones - I had one follow her from the Hyuuga mansion to the training ground of team eight. Kurenai's team seemed to have a similar routine to ours, except that she actually showed up on time and they actually trained together. I wasn't too impressed with their sparring, Hinata especially seemed half-hearted in her attacks, despite the swift fluidity of her form.

My clone alerted me when they were done with their mission of the day, long after our team parted ways, and I flickered on her path home to make sure I'd meet her without familiar company.

"Hinata, hey!" I greeted her boisterously, waving an arm in greeting. "Long time no see, how are you? Training hard? How's your team?"

"Oh!" she looked at me, then her pale eyes went down. "Ahem," her fingers locked together, and her cheeks went red, "my team is well. How are you?"

"I'm great, of course! What else could I be?" I smiled at her. "You're done for the day, right? Interesting in a spar? More training is always good!"

"Really…? You want to spar?" she looked up in surprise.

"Of course! You're pretty good, and I don't really get to spar with anyone. Sasuke and Sakura are very unpleasant people, and our sensei is lazy and not interested in teaching us anything. He wastes our time with stupid teamwork exercise, when it's clear we're never going to work well together. Whoever put our team together is an absolute idiot. So how about it? Team Seven's training ground is free, and it's not far."

"Ah, okay," she nodded, once again looking at the ground. Strange girl.

"Great!" I stepped forward and picked her up, hands around her waist, and flickered to the training ground. Unfortunately, when I let go, instead of standing, she fell over in a faint. I barely managed to catch her before she bumped her head on the ground. It was unexpected, but perhaps she was dieting and training, so got weak and dizzy? I didn't think the Hyuuga would permit their clan heir to fail to eat properly, but stranger things have happened.

I popped a pair of ready-to-eat hot meals out of a stasis-sealed storage scroll, bowls of spicy noodles with vegetables, mushrooms and slivers of rabbit meat. I could usually eat something, and a short break for food to get Hinata back on her feet seemed like a good idea. The smell wafting off the bowl, set on the ground near her face, had her blinking to wakefulness in a couple of minutes.

"Hey, Hinata, I hope you're okay. I got you some food, you really should eat better if you faint after training. Go on, eat! Iss gud stuff," I followed my own advice.

She was blushing furiously as she sat up, obviously terribly embarrassed, and concentrated on eating, quickly slurping the first two mouthfuls, then settling in to enjoy. "It's really good, where did you buy this?" she stopped to ask between two delicate bites.

"Made it, with clones," I blurted out before getting back to chomping on the yumminess. Getting the spices just right had taken five clones two days of work, but with that spot on, egg yolk to add texture and the saltiness of soy and oyster sauces, it was really delicious. I had just one group working on perfecting recipes, but intended to keep one on it until they couldn't come up with anything worthwhile. Lots of money allowed for a lot of mistakes, as clones couldn't gather or hunt all of the ingredients, and having them make my own just wasn't worth the time and effort - assuming it was even possible in the short term, as some of the spices weren't found near Konoha.

If I wasn't watching her carefully, I wouldn't have noticed the widened eyes she stared at me with for a moment in startlement at the answer she obviously hadn't expected. I just winked at her, setting my empty bowl on the grass and patting my stomach in pleasure, shaking my head in bemusement as red flooded her normally pale cheeks and she looked down again, eating with precise deliberation and measured speed.

I stretched while she finished her bowl, even with some meditation exercises my clones worked through it was still difficult for me to just sit or stand still. I had way too much energy, or maybe I was just naturally impatient.

"Okay, Hinata," I said as she finished, "it's best not to spar immediately after eating, so let's talk a bit. What are you focusing on in your training other than the gentle fist style? Is Kurenai teaching you genjutsu?"

"Ahem, no," she crossed her fingers. "We are working on teamwork and tracking challenges, mostly."

"So just gentle fist? You're not learning anything else?" I frowned at her. "That's really not good. While the style is deadly at close range, and you have natural protections against genjutsu, that still leaves you with several vulnerabilities. Long and mid-range are very dangerous for you, especially with only Shino on your team capable there. You need to pick up something to fight with at a distance, and I'd recommend more than just one thing. I'm actually learning to use a bow myself, with your eyes you can put down an enemy from beyond the range of their senses. You can also put all sorts of useful seals on arrows, from illumination to a blinding burst of light, simple explosion, a storage seal with anything from gas to flammable oil, and so on. In addition, you should learn elemental jutsu, you need two elements in any case to make jounin. I'm sure there are also ways to block the disabling chakra of the gentle fist style, and if you rely solely on that, you'd have to be fast on your feet if you ever run into someone who can do that. Also, it's always good to have a secret weapon or three, at least one nobody knows about. It's the sort of thing that can save your life. I've also read in the histories that the Hyuuga used to be incredible medics. If you study that, in secret if necessary, you could do more than just save the lives of your teammates if they become injured - Tsunade was pretty adamant that every team should have a medic, you know, and for a good reason - you could one day have your clan famous for healing anything and everything, not just for killing people."

"That's… those are interesting ideas, Naruto-kun," Hinata pursed her lips. "I'll have to think about them."

"You do that! Also, are you using weights or resistance seals? Your style really depends on speed, so increasing it is really important."

"Ah, no… but I've heard from my cousin Neji that his teammate Rock Lee uses weights for taijutsu. Do you think they are a good idea?" she blinked.

"Well, resistance seals for you, definitely," I popped a clone who flickered away. "I sent my clone off for supplies, if you give me your jacket, I can put them on it for you and show you how to use them. It not only increases your speed, but your chakra as well. You see, to overcome the resistance you don't just use more strength, you flood your limbs with chakra to enhance your entire body. Chakra is like a muscle, the more you use it, the more you have. If you can, try to use most of your chakra before going to sleep every day, you'll feel the difference in your stores in a single week, I'm sure."

"Oh," she pondered my suggestion. "That sounds like a good idea, I'll definitely try it. My clan style requires a lot of chakra, so having more would be good. I don't have enough for many of the advanced moves," she admitted in a whispery tone.

"Well, you'd be surprised by how much improvement you'll have in a month. We're growing and changing at our age, so you can easily triple your stores in a month and quintuple them in two, if you keep it up. Now let me have your jacket," I took the sealing ink, thread and needle from the clone. "Oh, and channel chakra into the paper slip," my clone handed it to her.

"Ahem, why?" she went all red again.

I blinked at her in confusion, "So I can put resistance seals on it, we just talked about it. Oh, the paper! Sorry, it's to learn your elemental affinity, most ninja find it much more easy to learn one or more specific elements. In fact, many bloodlines are elemental natured, like the Mokuton being earth and water, so those are the elements most Senju have, or rather had. The Nidaime is famous for his incredible water affinity. Most Uchiha were fire, and fire elemental affinity is unsurprisingly the most common one in the Land of Fire," I smiled at her.

The paper in her hand became soaked with, "Water, that's an all around useful element, and not surprising with the way you flow so elegantly in taijutsu," her cheeks flamed again. Was she blushing at a compliment? Well, I could understand not receiving any. Obviously, she needed more confidence, they probably really beat down on her at home, the bastards. Another clone flickered away, and I held out my hands, "Jacket please?"

It was only after she took it off that I realized the reason for her hesitation, the reason she wore it. Hinata might only be thirteen, but Kami was she well-developed! After I caught myself staring, I looked away and mumbled "Sorry about that," taking the coat and adding a bit of blood to the ink, before infusing the thread with ink and my chakra, moving the thread via chakra and iron-willed control. Channeling so little chakra was incredibly difficult, especially when concentrating on the absolute precision require by the seals. Fifteen minutes later, I was drenched in sweat as I called out, "Seal!"

"What is that?" Hinata asked, pointing at the small pile of scrolls at her feet.

"What? Oh, I sent a clone for water element training and jutsu, at least what I have. I'm pretty good with water, so if you have any trouble, let me know. I know all of these jutsus, and I've gotten quite far with pure manipulation. Start with the leaf exercise, getting it wet, then go on with what seems easiest. Learning pure nature manipulation makes it easier to learn and use the jutsu, it's like chakra control, it improves the chakra conversion to the element."

"But… this is… I can't…" her eyes went wide again and she forgot herself, actually looking me in the eyes.

"Of course you can. The better you get, the more I'll get out of sparring with you. Speaking of sparring, you need to not hold back. You won't be doing me any favors, the stronger your sparring opponent, the more you learn - well, as long as you're not sparring with someone who's unbeatable at your level and is also an asshole who isn't willing to help you. I'm guessing your father is like that, huh? Nah, never mind," I regretted mentioning that when she went all miserable-me expression. "Anyway, go full out, just no killing blows - well, not unless you're fighting my clones. I can give you experience in fighting against multiple opponents you can go full out against. Shadow clones are useful like that, pity they pop after a single blow."

I really needed to do something about that. Come to think of it, why not simply combine them with a more durable clones? An earthshade clone, tough and full of chakra, with my full skill behind it. Excited at the thought, I only just managed to avoid popping off several groups of clones to experiment, having just one appear and fade to pass the idea along to the ninjutsu, weapons and taijutsu practice groups.

"Yes, they're solid clones," I smiled at her look of astonishment, "but it's a forbidden technique, because it takes a lot of chakra. Check it out later with your byakugan, and if you see that you have enough chakra for it, I'll teach you. The secret of shadow clones is that what they experience, you gain the memory of once they pop. That's also another danger, as absorbing too much weight of memory all at once can make your brain explode. So when you learn it, use just a few and be very careful. Yes, it allows you to train everything other than your body, including muscle memory and jutsu - with five clones, you can have two studying ninjutsu, one medical, one genjutsu, and one working on a new gentle fist move, just for example, while you are training for flexibility and speed. I've been training this way very hard for two weeks, so don't be discouraged if I'm a lot better than you expect. I'm sure you know that I have a lot of chakra, so I have dozens of clones training all the time. I'm going to be the best ninja ever!" I smiled brightly at her.

"You're really going to teach me a forbidden technique?" she asked after a moment.

"Of course! The old man said I couldn't teach anyone because it's dangerous, but it's not dangerous for you if can see that you can do it and know how many clones you can safely make. You're smart, so you won't overdo the memory thing. If I managed not to melt my brain, I'm not worried you, dattebayo!"

"Ah," she said faintly.

"Anyway, ready to spar? I'm going to start with weight and resistance seals on, okay?"

"Okay," Hinata added with a small voice, following me to the center of the grounds.

"Don't forget, do your best - otherwise we don't gain anything from it! It's especially important if you're facing someone who isn't as good as you, as giving them false confidence can be dangerous. Now, let's start with pure taijutsu today. Go!"

I started attacking immediately, pressing her without pause. Letting a gentle fist user in close range was dangerous enough, letting them have the initiative was pure suicide. Hinata was really agile and fast, but I was much better than Shino and Kiba - and the weights and resistance seal were on slightly lower settings in anticipation of testing her out thoroughly. For all that, it took a full seven minutes to put her down, and even with most of my strikes pulled, she was sure to have some serious bruising.

"Alright?" I asked as I pulled the rapidly breathing Hinata to her feet, carefully looking away from the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

"That was…" she breathed, "You're very good."

"Well, so are you. And I didn't give you a chance to turn the tables. You can see how important stamina is in a fight. It doesn't matter if you're the best, because in a real battle, if the first few opponents tire you out, you're dead. Here, look," I raised my shirt, letting her see the harness of weights. "You might want to use training weights in addition to the resistance seals, it helps strength but it's also good for stamina. If you want to stay alive as a ninja, you need to be able to fight continuously for several hours. Want to try again, with me defending this time?"

"Wait," she tested her movements and was obviously in some pain. "I have some ointment I want to put on first."

"Sure, let me know when you're ready," I got the hint and turned away, sitting cross-legged and alternately plucking blades of grass and fallen leaves, setting them on fire, cutting them with wind, crinkling with lightning, crumbling with earth and wetting with water - all while running three coins around my body and trying not to think of what lay beneath Hinata's clothes. My chakra control was way better than it used to be, probably good enough to start on genjutsu and medical, but I wanted good rather than mere good enough, so another couple of weeks it would be.

"Ready?" she asked, swaying in place like a reed in the wind.

"Go for it!" I almost eeped in surprise as she moved, but managed to slip away. Not striking back wasn't easy, but I reined myself in and retreated steadily, getting up into the trees and jumping around. I set a few traps, simple tripwires and ninja wire snares at inconvenient places, but her byakugan saw through everything - though it did delay her a bit. She chased me through the trees for a few moments before I returned to the clearing, this time holding her off with pure speed - only using my bloodline a couple of times in five minutes of intense sparring to avoid a jab that would have struck. A few more minutes and her speed and smooth execution started to flag, and taking a gamble, I allowed her to hit a spot on my arm that I flooded with chakra prior to being struck.

It worked! I could actually feel the momentary pressure against the tenketsu, the spot in my body where chakra was emitted, which tapered off almost immediately. I had a desperation defense against juuken strikes, if I could control my chakra faster than they could hit. Another couple of minutes, and I stepped back and raised a hand to signal stop, letting her breathe and relax.

"So, you saw how important speed is. Even with the byakugan and your techniques, much like the Sharingan, you're vulnerable to superior speed, so you need to work on that. While you're there, also work on the speed of your hand-signs, a tenth of a second can save your life with a replacement. And learn and master more jutsus that complement your style of fighting, because the gentle fist isn't always the best way to do it - and sometimes it doesn't work at all."

"Sound… huff… like a good idea. What now?" Hinata said somewhat plaintively, looking around rather than at me, and seemed a bit… afraid?

"Well, we could stop for a snack and then spar again, or if you're too tired, I can show you how the resistance seal works and you can test it, then we can see if you have enough chakra for a shadow clone?"

"Let's rest a bit," she nodded, looking relieved and much happier. A truly weird girl. "This is really good," she mouthed around a cinnamon pastry. "Did you make this?"

"Nope, I'm not up to baking as of yet," I didn't mention that it came from the confectionary she'd stopped at this morning, "give me a couple of weeks and ask me again," I smiled at the thought of homemade baked goods.

I drew out our spar, not really going full out, but very careful not to get hit. Twilight was approaching by the time we were done with everything, so I asked, "What time do you usually finish up with your team? I'm almost always done by three."

"Ahem, four is good for me," she looked up at me with an actual smile, cheeks red again.

"See you tomorrow at four then?"

"Yes. Pity I need to double my chakra before I can call up even a single shadow clone," Hinata groused, eyes going wide with an accompanying "eep!" as I caught her waist and flickered us much closer to her home.

"Good night, see you later! I'm off to train," I waved at the nearly comatose, tomato-faced girl, and flickered away once I was sure she wasn't going to fall.

Really weird girl.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Surprises and Discoveries

The remainder of the week was extremely eventful. Hinata improved with spectacular speed for someone who wasn't using shadow clones, which made me feel really stupid. She also got better about talking to me, though I'm not quite certain just how much I helped her confidence - I sure as hell tried. With a bit of persuasion and a push from me, she asked Kurenai for tutoring in genjutsu, and promised to help me learn once I started, which was very welcome - probably as welcome as my assistance with water manipulation. I also provided her with copies of medical and sealing texts, and at her request, what I had about wind and lightning elements - fire and earth being the opposites of water and thus much more difficult for her to learn, and lightning worked synergistically with water. I gave her a few ideas about combining the two, from electricity-imbued water dragons to water whips that conducted a charge.

It took a couple of days and a lot of work, but I managed to figure out the earthshadow clone, and no longer had to waste my time on Kakashi's idiotic training exercises or D-ranks. Surprisingly, with a prepared matrix of earth, the chakra cost of shadow clones actually dropped rather dramatically, which prompted me to try it with water clones for Hinata's sake, planning to have her training double or even quintuple once her chakra capacity expanded and she mastered her water clones. It took a bit of work to master the two-step jutsu, but eventually I was able to compress it down, and in a few days of work it required just two hand signs and a whisper. I'd have it fully mastered in less than a month, given how much I used it.

My training, however, was the relatively mundane part of the week. It was the spy and theft squads that made things happen. Checking out the homes of jounin and following them around to learn their habits bore some odd, unexpected and not entirely wholesome fruit.

It turns out that there are secrets within secrets in Konoha, which I perhaps should have expected. I was surprised to learn that I retained a distressing amount of naivete. Perhaps Kakashi was being literal when he said that we should look beneath the underneath. Following an ANBU in a bear mask led me not to his home, but underground to a hidden network of tunnels. Therein, I found the ROOT, a band of psychotic ninja answering to the crazy evil mastermind Danzo Shimura, a scheming, traitorous, crippled oldster who held more of the political reins of power in Konoha than old man Sandaime, with a combination of blackmail, bribery, and appeal to nationalistic fervor and the appearance of strength and tradition. He took in young orphans, trained them and broke them mentally to obedience through a really abhorrent regimen of brainwashing. Slave seals were much kinder. His ideal ninja was emotionless and utterly obedient and self sacrificing, a heartless tool.

I had every intention of killing that conniving bastard and his closest henchfolk, before blowing up their lair, but I had to be very careful about it. For all his obvious insanity, he was probably very powerful, and the same was likely true of the agents he cultivated and kept close. Part and parcel of his mental problems was a very unhealthy dose of paranoia, as my insect-clones discovered when spying closer - on his bath, yuck. The parody of a man had Sharingan eyes, likely from the Uchiha massacre he orchestrated, implanted into his supposedly crippled arm and replacing his lost eye. The only way I was willing to go against S-rank ninja, which he likely counted as, having survived all three of the great shinobi wars, was when they had no access to their chakra. I recalled the seal array from the forbidden scroll that did exactly that to an area, but I wasn't good enough to use it as of yet. Besides, all I really needed to do was catch him sleeping and slap a tag on.

There was no rush, however. Root archives had a lot of information, and my own file was quite thick. There were a lot of people interested in the Kyuubi jinchuriki, and to my surprise Danzo had worked quite hard to keep me alive. There was a long list of people, especially councilors, who'd tried to get me executed. Naturally, he only kept me for use as a weapon for Konoha, but the startlingly lengthy list of people who wanted me dead stoked my anger - the cold, vengeful type. It was an easy resolution to come to, really - they would all die, the people in influence who'd worked against me. When I left the village on my first mission, I'd leave a horde of assassins behind, and until then I'd have a proper list of names, and do the scouting and preparations. My first assassination mission was going to be so grand!

There was much more to Root archives, of course. Intelligence on Konoha, the Land of Fire and just about all foreign nations and hidden villages and clans, missing nin, commercial and illegal enterprises, shipping and travel patterns, infrastructure and the economy of all nations, spies and agents… and the full training curriculum for their agents, plus a secure library for higher ranking techniques. It was an absolutely incredible haul, a veritable dragon's hoard of goodies that left me warm inside.

The sweetest part was the wind jutsus and high level information on wind techniques. Danzo, apparently, was one of two ninja other than myself in Konoha with wind affinity - the second being Asuma Sarutobi, the old man's son and jounin-sensei of team ten, the lazy ones and Ino. It turns out that there's much more to air than just blunt trauma or deadly slicing attacks. Air pressure is what the weather is all about, though the whole things was just too complicated for me to understand - at least, as of yet. Combined with my lightning and water affinities, once I figured this out, I'd be a master of storms and tornadoes, capable of charting out and calling down natural lightning strikes.

That, however, I put on back-burner, it would be the work of years rather than months. The more immediately useful, utterly ingenious and new concept was that of void. Instead of using the air as a blunt or sharp instrument, using its lack as a suffocating or destructive element. This turned wind's weakness to fire into strength, for the void could extinguish any fire. Almost immediately, I started practicing some of the basic techniques, but it was very difficult, and I had to put it aside until I completed mastering the element of wind. My clones were out searching for a waterfall to cut, and meanwhile were playing with a river, which was not so very different.

The most infuriating and rewarding discovery was the theft of my true heritage. I was very surprised to learn that Danzo knew who my parents were - Kushina Uzumaki, heiress to Uzushiogakure, who came to Konoha to replace Mito Uzumaki as the jinchuriki of the Kyuubi. And more importantly, Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash and Yondaime Hokage.

Learning that had me beating my head against a tree until blood covered my eyes. How could I have been so stupid as not to see it in the mirror? The idolized hero of my childhood, my father who sacrificed me for a traitorous village. I went through a small rampage in the woods before realizing that it simply didn't matter anymore. The past was the past, and agonizing over it was just silly. As the Hokage, he probably did the right thing to save his home and fulfill his duty. The Sandaime probably had good intentions, but not the power to enforce them. It was done, it was past.

Still, I found part of my legacy. I had no idea where the Namikaze secrets and treasures were, but Root and Danzo gave me all the Uzumaki had to offer, sealed to open for my blood. Sealing manuals beyond anything in the Elemental Lands, a wondrous sword my mother had used along with instructions for her sword style and the Uzu taijutsu style, a set of her armor with many unique and special defensive seals, the history of my clan, the details of our bloodline, even a small collection of jutsu, most of them water style. There was also the clan summoning scroll for Ospreys, fisher-hawks. When I put the security seal back on, I added a spectacularly nasty cascading series of traps to it. Artistic, it was. Outside was the obvious original seal, the traps layered in seals inside the wood of the drawer, drawn with chakra threads beneath the surface of the material.

It took me a while to realize that I was crying while I went through everything, this time without any clones. It took most of the night for me to get back to normal and I didn't really manage to get any sleep. Still, I exercised a modicum of self-restraint and went back to my routine, completing the review of Root resources.

In all, while there were a lot of new jutsus and other useful techniques to be found in the Root library, most of it wasn't that exciting or special. New types of traps, poisons and other tricks, a few interesting seals, learning to read lips, unfamiliar weapon and taijutsu styles, more instruction on stealth, infiltration and camouflage, but nothing earth-shattering, no real trump cards. It was no surprise that Danzo had to crawl around in the tunnels beneath the trees of Konoha. His minions were not that impressive, or even all that numerous, and their edge was not as sharp as he imagined it to be. Particularly disgusting were his contacts with illegal operations, smugglers, drug dealers and slavers, the way he made money showed exactly how right everyone was to distrust him. Root's destruction would be a big windfall for me, that was already planned for - money, properties, mercantile operation, armory and library, I was going to take it all. Even some of the blackmail material and the spy network were worth keeping. There was no nervousness or sense of advanced guilt concerning the lives of Root operatives - they didn't really live, they merely existed. It was sad, and I decided that I owed the old man a big one for keeping me away from this twisted existence.

Until the day came for its end, I kept a sharp eye on Root for new intelligence, but otherwise ignored its existence. Dwelling on such darkness beneath my feet was just too depressing.

The second fruit came from the theft squad, tracing back the trail of money and control over almost eighty percent of Konoha's economy - at least, that portion not owned directly or indirectly by clans - to a mere five people, one of whom owned most of the shady business in the village, from gambling and prostitution to fencing and the smuggling of forbidden items. These five also controlled almost all of the civilian council, and were in turn heavily involved with Danzo, who was actually blackmailing three of them with some degree of success. Konoha was such a terrible mess.

The idea actually came from a clone - why not simply replace all of them? It would give me almost unparalleled degree of control over Konoha, especially after I got rid of Danzo, and an incredible economic base, literally more money than I could spend. The answer turned out to be blood clones, Tobirama Senju's invention, one among several nasty and highly complicated jutsus he came up with. The Nidaime must have been quite the twisted genius. The look of admiration Hinata gave me when I share his tips on drawing water from air was something I recalled fondly.

After studying their routine and experimenting with the jutsu - quite painfully and drainfully - I actually replaced the easiest and most reclusive of them. Two days later, one of the sealing squads came up with a siphon-stasis-storage seal for blood, which I quickly tested on a dog, then used on myself. You never knew when a blood clone might be needed, and they were vastly more powerful than even the earthshadow ones. Beyond combat uses, or even spying, replacing more people or creating new people to extend my economic network was a good idea, especially if I could come up with a reliable way to keep them charged, as it turned out that blood clones could not regain chakra - I was nowhere near good enough to adapt the nature-chakra siphoning and conversion seal. Hiraishin was a medium-term solution, but I was a very long way from mastering that, either. For now, I'd have to keep my circle of blood close.

Having that money at my disposal was useful for paying tutors to teach my clones. Everything from cooking to electrical and plumbing work, laying tile, carpentry, to the making and repair of weapons, armor and clothes. Beyond that, I now owned the house I lived in, allowing me to throw out the very few other tenants, or rather provide them with alternative living arrangements. The entire place and the secret basement I created below was now mine, and I fixed it up nicely, upping the security and privacy measures even beyond Danzo-level paranoia. Much like him, I knew that everyone was out to get me. The disturbing intelligence he had regarding an organization that was apparently out to capture jinchiriki, this Akatsuki and its complement of S-rank missing-nin, including the bogie-man Itachi Uchiha, served only to sharpen that paranoia to a finer edge. There was also the notion of gaining allies among the other jinchuriki, at least those from Suna or Taki, Konoha's allies, but I didn't really have feasible means for that at present without going missing-nin. Well, perhaps leave a blood clone behind, but I wasn't sanguine about the idea. Thinking about it, I realized that at least part of it was a fear of the unknown - I'd never left Konoha's borders before, and even the unpleasant known was a sort of home and refuge. With so much to do, I was in no real hurry to leave, however - I'd face that fear soon enough, with Kakashi and our first C-rank.

The third fruit of my spying endeavors was just as rewarding, if not more so. One of my earthshadow clones had to hide beneath the ground, using the mole technique, to escape notice when he got careless in shadowing a jounin, and discovered a hidden laboratory. What I found there was both fascinating and horrifying, and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Orochimaru, the renegade Sannin and frightful genius of an S-rank missing nin, traitor and murderer - and his dream, ambition and works.

From the histories, I knew that he'd been passed over for the position of Fourth Hokage, but even before that, started kidnapping people and experimenting on them. His quest, I now learned, was for immortality in pursuit of learning all jutsus - which seemed a frightfully stupid reason to achieve immortality, since more were always being invented, and you needed bloodlines for some. Of course, part of the research I found involved the implantation of bloodlines, quite entirely failed apparently, and also very much beyond my present understanding. The first prize I got from delving into the den of horrors was a small sample of preserved blood from Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage of Konoha and the only known wielder of Mokuton, wood-release, who had transformed the verdant plains of the Land of Fire into forest all by himself, defeated Madara Uchiha and captured and bound all the tailed beasts, the greatest demons in the Elemental Lands - the greatest of which lay quiescent in my own guts.

That was not, however, the only prize. Beside the experiments with bloodlines, which I was sure would prove useful since I had my own aspirations there, there were extensive notes about failed paths to immortality. One of them caught my fancy - I was pretty sure that it would, with a lot of work, just possibly, work for me. The concept of a perfect flesh, bone and blood clone wrought from one's own flesh and blood, kept in stasis with a seal calling your freed soul to it - a contingency for death, only soul-binding means would be capable of ending me. Orochimaru had lacked the medical genius to create the perfect clone, and eventually lost his patience and turned to other, probably less wholesome and savory paths, but for me this was perfect. I had no doubt that I could have it ready by the time I was in my twenties, and could save not only myself but those precious to me. I was sure I'd have some by then. Really! I quite liked Hinata and really hoped she'd be one, one day - now if only I understood her. All the squeaking, jumping and fainting when I caught her by surprise or touched her, or said something nice. Let alone did something nice, which I was trying to ration so she'd stay conscious. Sometimes I thought I could boil eggs on her face. What was the girl's problem, anyway?

The real treasure and the most immediately useful thing I found there, however, laid neatly next to a detailed description of the powers, uses and abilities of Kusanagi, the Grasscutter sword, was the summoning scroll for the Mantis. Apparently retrieved together from the greatest champion of Grass, which used to be much more formidable than it is nowadays, before Konoha and Iwa cut it down to size, it had no living name as summoner, which left me with a bit of a quandary. I had two summoning scrolls, now how did I use them?

Checking the Root archives failed to come up with the summoning jutsu, but information from there and bingo books delivered an answer close to home - Kakashi was a summoner owning the dog contract. There were a few other summons who held allegiance to Konoha - the Uchiha used to have the hawk contract, the old man was famous for monkeys, Maito Gai held the turtle contract, Mitarashi Anko, Orochimaru's neglected apprentice, was party to the snake contract, the absent Sannin each had a contract, and a couple of clans had one - the Hyuuga had the squirrel, the Nara had the deer and hidden in the Senju manor most likely was the lynx contract.

Kakashi was closest to home, but honestly, he was the one I trusted least. Maito Gai, from the little I saw, was not someone I could deal with - his simpleton mask could probably smoke out any deception I could come up with. For all my growing skills, I wasn't stupid enough to believe I could outwit a jounin in simple games. I was learning fast, but lacked experience, and was determined never to let arrogance be my downfall. Anko was dangerous, but easiest to bribe - a week of free dango would do it, I had the money for it. Simplest would be bargaining with the old man, telling him about the hidden lab in exchange for the jutsu, but it didn't seem like a good idea for some reason. I didn't want him watching me or thinking I was hiding anything more, at least not until I got much stronger.

Anko it would be then, and I held something more to give her - as an Uzumaki with actual seal experience, I was probably the only chance she'd get to have her curse seal, the one Orochimaru gave her as a parting present, removed. Hell, for the promise of trying I might actually get a real sensei, but I decided to try the easy way first. Or…, I hit my head against the nearest wall, trying to drive away the stupidity. I could just ask Hinata, whose clan held a contract. I was certainly teaching her enough to ask for that little.

Thus went the week, with Hinata more than happy to finally give something back. The weekend I spent getting acquainted with my new summons. The ospreys were delighted to serve the Uzumaki once again, while the mantis were rather cool to me, but struck me as unemotional in general. Still, both had summons who were more than willing to teach and spar, and I worked harder than ever during the weekend, delighting in learning so much and gaining such precious experience, slowly getting to know the various low and mid-powered among them.

Unsurprisingly, the ospreys were masters of wind and water jutsu, with a few having knowledge of weaving lightning jutsu. The mantis were masters of close combat, stealth and camouflage, and most were familiar with earth jutsu and genjutsu, a few also having fire, cutting wind or lightning in their arsenal. They were also deadly quick and offered an incredible experience for taijutsu and weapon spars, and I gained valuable experience in detecting and combating genjutsu - and lost a lot of earthshadow clones, who had to replace with me when I failed to break the illusions quickly enough, or more embarrassingly, at all. I made sure to stock up on their favorite foods in stasis scrolls, which served as part bribe/part payment, a variety of fresh fish and seafood for the ospreys and small to mid-size animals for the mantis, from rabbits and snakes to dogs, fish, sheep, chickens and turkey.

It was a new week and I was raring to go. Sparing just a moment of pity and consideration for Sasuke and Sakura when I sent an earthshadow clone off to deal with them and not-sensei, I spent the day on my usual training routine, deciding to play with the summons on the weekends only, when fewer ninja were training and the chances of anyone noticing anything were smaller. From spying on the Hokage, I was familiar with his scrying glass, and my vest included a specially tuned privacy seal.

"Hey there, Hinata-chan!" she turned red, as always. "How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? Are you feeling stronger? It's been a week, so how do you feel? Oh, and thanks for the summoning jutsu, really, you're the greatest! I'm keeping my summons secret for now, but I'll show you later, promise. So, how are things?" I stopped babbling for a moment. It was harder than I expected, really, since I almost never talked to anyone else anymore. Having Hinata there for me was really nice, really new, and felt a bit fragile.

"Ahem," she did the finger thing and looked down, "I am much stronger, yes, father was almost pleased. He said that if I keep improving, he will have me sign the clan's summoning scroll."

"That's great!" I patted her on the shoulder, jumping back when she went crimson to avoid having to resuscitate her. It was no longer cute, those fainting spells were getting to be annoying. "Don't worry, you'll be much stronger faster than you can believe. Once can do the water clone jutsu, I'll teach you the watershadow clone, a combination with shadow clone that takes much less chakra and is actually better and stronger. Then you'll be learning ten times faster, or even twenty! You'll be the best medic and best at genjutsu, and you'll be able to add more to your fighting style to make it almost unbeatable. Speaking of learning more, can you think of anyone we can add to our practice sessions? Working two against one, or as a team against my clones, we can do a lot more with a couple more people. And you know, if they have any special skill, talent or knowledge, that can help too. What do you think?"

"Ano," she bit her lower lip, a foot drawing lines in the earth, "I'm not sure. My cousin Neji has a team, but I don't think he'd be interested in working with us. And there's my team, Kiba and Shino," she offered.

"Oh right, Maito Gai's team. I'll check them out, maybe one of the others on that team would be interested. As for your team, I don't think we can help Shino all that much, you know. He works very differently. And Kiba wouldn't work out very well, I think, he'd need to prove he's better, and…"

"And you're much stronger, yes, that would be a problem," Hinata nodded, raising her head to actually look at me.

"Which doesn't mean that you can't help them out. Tell them about the weights and where to buy them, I can get you resistance seals for them, and here are a pair of chakra-paper slips to test their element," I put them in her hand, and she went crimson when our fingers touched, looking down again. That was a clue! Touch was a trigger.

"The less said about Sasuke and Sakura the better," I grumbled. "From Asuma's team, there's the two slackers. There's no way they'd be willing to work harder, even to save their own lives. Idiots. Anyway, Ino is annoying and not terribly pleasant, but I think she actually wants to grow stronger. Are you willing to tolerate her? I think we should try to recruit her. If nothing else, it would make you feel better, seeing how much stronger you are, and then we'll check Gai's team for possibilities."

Hinata blushed at the compliment, but nowhere near as red as she had at the touch, or even when I patted her shoulder. I still wasn't sure what those blushes and fainting signified, but I was starting to have a vague suspicion.

"Maybe, we can try?" she offered, not looking very happy at the idea.

"Great! So, where do find her? Any idea?" I asked.

"Flower shop, her parents own one. It's…" I didn't need directions, I suddenly remembered, so I grabbed her waist and flickered near there. Putting the suddenly limp girl on a bench, I took out the smelling salts I'd been forced to procure, and waved them beneath her nose.

"Ah…" she jumped back.

"Anyway, ready to speak with Ino?" a discreet clone informed me that she was in fact there, and blessedly on her lonesome.

"Okay," she mumbled, and I took her hand to help her stand up. Another massive blush.

"Great, let's go then! Recruiting we shall go!"

**Comments Response:**

_1) When did he copy the Forbidden Scroll?_

_2) Did he transform his clones before sending them to the library?_

1) When he made shadow clones, he was carrying the scroll - and they had a copy, which was copied to paper. Quote "I even had my shadow clones, which appeared with a copy of the scroll, go off and make a copy for me on the sly." from chapter 1.

2) He always transforms in public, take that as a given. Librarians wouldn't let him in.

_I feel like Naruto is still going to end up overpowered, but at least you are pacing it more._

Exactly so - but Naruto by nature is overpowered, at least potentially. Remember canon, a 16 yo winning against Pein. He won't be much more powerful, he'll be much more versatile and capable of exerting power over a larger territory and with more precision.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: New Comrades

For me, it wasn't the profusion of colorful flowers that caught my attention, it was the cloying sweet smell, a heavy weight in the air that almost had my lungs congesting. Not terribly pleasant, however pretty it looked, and I bet no Inuzuka visited without pressing need. The dog-loving clan's noses were probably more sensitive than mine, though given Kiba's lack of attention to hygiene, I might be wrong - or they were just used to the wet-dog smell.

"Yo, Ino, you look bored. How's life treating you?"

"Fine, Naruto - hey, are you taller? Yes you are, in less than a month, that's amazing. Anyway, are you here with a message from Sasuke?" she demanded, suddenly coming to life.

"Now why would I care about him? And be nice and say hello to Hinata, if you don't mind," I pointed to the girl who was half-hiding in my shadow.

"Oh, hello there Hinata," Ino said distractedly, before turning back her face back to me and tossing her blond hair back with a dramatic gesture intended to accentuate her beauty - I'd seen her use it plenty of times in the academy, the posture of 'I'm gorgeous so go ahead and admire'. I was already reconsidering the idea of spending more time with the fluffhead.

"Well why else would you be here? I've never seen you… oh, are you two together now? Naruto, you're not supposed to buy flowers with the girl, you're supposed to buy them for her! Baka!" her tirade halted rather abruptly at Hinata's squeaky 'eep' and crimson collapse.

Sighing, I caught the girl before she reached the hard ground and held her in my arms. Okay, that was enough of a clue for even me to figure out that she liked me, which made me feel very weird. I'd never had anyone like me before, so I didn't really know how to act. With a willful snort, I set that aside for the moment. Recruiting mission, here we go!

"We actually didn't come here for the flowers, but to speak with you. You see, we've been training together on things our senseis, and in Hinata's case family, won't teach us. Training harder, learning more. Being a ninja is a very dangerous business, and the more prepared we are, the more tricks we have, the more likely we are to come back in one piece. And the more people we have who are serious about training, the more we can do. We thought of asking you to join us, since we know how lazy your teammates are, and your clan jutsu are of limited use on the battlefield. If your team is outnumbered, even by bandits, you may have to fight on your own - are you ready to live on die on you own skills? The first C-rank you take could get you killed. I don't know what the statistics are, but of last year's rookie teams, there's only one still around, you remember Iruka mentioning that. One out of three is really bad odds, you know. So what do you think? We usually meet at four in training ground seven every weekday and train hard for two to three hours."

"Wow, that's quite a speech," Ino actually seemed impressed. "And you're right, my teammates and sensei are totally lazy bums. Still, if I want to train harder, why not with my family? And why don't you train with your team?"

"Can they spare the time? Two-three hours every single day? We want you for two on one spars, which your dad can't help you with - in any case, he'll probably want to concentrate on your clan jutsus, and you should really do that as well as training with us, like Hinata does. Besides, we have some training techniques that can make you stronger and faster. Chakra weights and resistance seals. Also, I can see that your diet is not doing you any favors. You have little chakra and are physically weak - no, I'm not trying to insult you," I held off her burgeoning rant with a raised hand, "I'm making a point. You mentioned my being taller, I was making the same mistake, eating wrong. I found a book in the library that taught me how to eat properly for a ninja. Seriously, nutrition is a key point to building your body - you do want to be the best that you can be, right? Here," I wrote out the book's name and location in the library, "that's the book that will really open your eyes about what goes into your stomach. Ninja don't actually need to diet, we train so hard that all we really need are certain basic building blocks, the right ingredients in our food in minimal quantities, and a lot of energy. Seriously, have you ever seen a fat ninja outside Chouji's family? And the Akimichi need that fat, it's energy they use for their body expansion jutsu. After a serious fight, they can be dangerously thin, so you shouldn't bug your teammate about his appetite, it's actually necessary for him. As for my team, they aren't interested."

I didn't bother mentioning that my earthshadow clone had taken to specifically targeting Sasuke's balls in the few spars Kakashi instigated, to the extent that he'd had to be taken to the hospital to treat his ruptured testicles twice. For some reason, I was quite sure that he had absolutely no interest in sparring with me more than he absolutely had to, ha ha. Making it look like an accident had taken a lot of effort, but without his Sharingan exposed, Kakashi wasn't good enough to catch me when he wasn't really paying attention to anything except his porn. The idea of more little Sasukes running around was abhorrent, and spoiling that goal of his seemed like an excellent idea.

"Wow, really?" Ino actually seemed intrigued by the notion. "I didn't know that. But I'm not weak, that's just nonsense! I… hey, Hinata is waking up," she had a sly smile on her face.

"Hey there, Hinata," I looked down into my arms. "How much have your chakra reserves increased in the week we've trained? How does Ino compare to you?" I gently set her down on her feet.

"Eighty percent," she said quietly, "and pretty soon I'll have double what I had when we started. My speed has increased by forty percent and my stamina has more than doubled already. As for Ino," she looked at her, "she has little more than half the chakra I had before we started. Barely enough for a couple of B-rank jutsu."

"And mine? Since the graduation test?" I was actually curious about that.

"I cannot look at you with the byakugan without being blinded," she apologized. "But your glow is brighter, when you're not masking."

"What do you mean, blinding?!" Ino voice was rather shrill.

"I have more chakra than the Hokage. It's one of the Uzumaki clan bloodline traits," I replied with partial honesty. Deceiving with the truth is always easier.

Ino was gobsmacked, her mouth actually hanging open.

I thought about rubbing her face in it or joking, but I was trying to recruit her. Admittedly she was so weak that it would take a month of intense physical work before she would be worth sparring with, but you had to start somewhere and with someone. "Seriously, why do you think I just couldn't do the basic clone technique? I still can't, it's just too little chakra for me to use properly, despite the fact that I've been training really hard in control. Actually, I might be able to create a large number of ordinary clones, and interspersed with shadow clones, that would be just…," I chuckled at the possibilities. "Anyway, if you want to join us, show up tomorrow at four. Don't forget to check out the book, oh, and here's a vest with resistance seals and instructions on how to use it. Also," I raised my shirt and showed her the weight harness, "this is how I use chakra weights, they're very good for increasing strength and stamina. The principle is the same as with the resistance seal," I waved at her and named the store where she could find one - which I now just happened to own, if indirectly.

Grabbing Hinata's hand, I semi-dragged her out of the shop before Ino could get her balance back, since trying to get out of a conversation with that non-stop mouth could be difficult. As I predicted, Hinata's face was all red at the touch, her soft skin slightly clammy.

"So what do you think, is she going to show up?" I asked, curious about her perspective.

"Absolutely, we've made her curious - that's all you really need with a gossip hound," Hinata sounded almost… venomous? Sweet, gentle Hinata?

"Well, I suggest we give her a few tidbits that sound like secrets, but really aren't. If she spreads those around, we'll give her the boot. Besides, she needs at least a month of heavy physical work before she can spar with us, I'll just have a clone run her through the paces, and run her ragged at that. Seeing how weak she really is might humble her, and if it lights a fire under her ass, well, there's that will of fire thing Konoha's all about," I gave her a smile. "That works for you?"

"It sounds good, but we'll just have to see," Hinata was uncharacteristically firm, her hand pressing almost painfully against mine - until she noticed and let go with a startled eep and a tomato bloom.

"We'll do that, then. Okay, we have almost an hour and a half until team Gai is done for the day. They usually train from eight in the morning to six in the evening, with a couple of hours lunch break. Of course, Lee and Gai start at five and finish at nine in the evening, but it's an opportunity to catch them without Neji and see if Lee and Tenten can train with us. They're a year older with some experience, and Lee especially seems really tough. And yes, I am spying on them, that's what shadow clones were originally for. Start working on water clones, I've figured out a way to meld the shadow clone with an elemental clone, making it much cheaper. You could probably start with four after you figure out first the water clone, then the shadow clone - don't use more than one - and then blending them. It's a jutsu I invented, so please don't teach it to anyone without my permission. Shall we?"

She nodded eagerly, and I caught her by the waist, holding her close and taking us there in the speedy blur of a body flicker.

"By the way, here's a scroll for the body flicker jutsu, I think you're more than ready for this," I ignored the small pout on her lips. "Don't worry, mastering that doesn't mean I'll stop hugging you, you're my first and best friend," I proceeded to demonstrate… and as expected, she lost consciousness. This time, more understanding, I smiled fondly at her as I woke her up.

She almost blurred away from me in crimson embarrassed haste, and commenced training with singular concentration. More than an hour later, I halted our spar as a clone informed me that we were in luck - team Gai minus Neji was available.

"Come on, we need to hurry before Tenten leaves," I held out my hand, and she willingly came into my arms. In a flash of speed, we were there.

"Hey there! I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and this is Hyuuga Hinata, Neji's cousin," I introduced us, feeling a slight pang of emptiness at the missing "future Hokage" which used to be part and parcel of my introductions.

"Ha! My youthful friends, I am Maito Gai, Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey!" he posed, white teeth sparkling even in the fading light.

"And I am Rock Lee, Konoha's Beautiful Wild Green Beast, full of youthful fire!" he copped an identical pose.

"Are they always like that?" I quirked a brow at the bun-haired girl who'd drawn in a long breath and sighed in exasperation.

"In fact, yes," she sniffed and rolled her eyes. "I'm Tenten, what are you here for?" she blurted out bluntly, apparently eager to get away.

"Well, the two of us have been training in our spare time, trading tricks and techniques, and we thought of inviting a few more people so we could learn more. Hinata suggested your team, so here we are."

"Ah!" Gai cried out. "It would be most youthful to train more in your spare time. It is a testament to the youth of Konoha's genin that you came to us with this idea! The fires of youth burn deeply in you!"

"Gai sensei!" "Lee!"

What followed was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen in my life, as the two jumped into the air and hugged each other, and a genjutsu of a setting sun appeared behind them, waves crashing against the rocks. My attempts to dispel it were all for naught, and I instantly instituted a new project - genjutsu immunity seal. Illusion techniques manipulate the flow of chakra to the brain, and could be combated in three ways that I knew of. You could stop the flow of chakra in your body momentarily, pulse your chakra or receive an infusion of chakra from another, or the least desirable - hurting yourself physically. The first stage of the seal I conceived of would detect the activation of a genjutsu, activated by the intrusion of foreign chakra, and pulse stored chakra to counteract it. That one, I expected, would come easily to me once I learned how to reliably cast illusions - I was getting there, but slowly. The second stage, a perfect barrier to genjutsu, would intercept foreign chakra of that specific type, either to store it for my use, to power another seal, or merely dissipate it. Yes, definitely starting to work on it, immediately - tonight, in fact.

"Well, it's terribly youthful and all," Tenten rolled her eyes again, twirling a kunai by its ring at high speed, "but why would we bother training with you?"

"Well, I could tell you, or I could show you. Up for a spar?" I adopted some of the haughtiness displayed by Sasuke, the good old 'you are beneath me but I'll humor you anyway' posture.

"Why not?" she affected superiority, the posturing and clash of wills starting before physical.

We stood facing each other in the clearing, Gai yelling out, "Hajime!"

Before she could throw either of the kunai in her hands at me, a clone came up from the ground at her feet, "Double Suicide Decapitation Technique!", leaving only her head sticking out of the earth.

"Can she break out of that?" I asked Gai casually.

"That was most unyouthful!" Lee cried out before his sensei could respond.

"Why?" I was genuinely confused. "It was a spar, to show off what I can teach her. It seems that her ninjutsu is severely lacking, as is her chakra sensing and general instincts. An enemy nin from Iwa would have killed her easily with this jutsu."

"Naruto-kun is most correct, my student. Tenten, you will be training with Naruto and his friend in ninjutsu, it is an excellent idea," and the fuming girl's face turned speculative as she blinked thoughtfully. "I'm afraid, however," Gai turned to me, "that my youthful student Lee cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu, his coils are damaged. So…"

"He would benefit from training against those who use ninjutsu and genjutsu, to learn how to deal with them. And we would learn how to deal with a taijutsu expert, it is a good deal all around," I cut him off.

"That…," Gai trailed off for a second, "that is incredibly youthful! Yes, Lee, you will learn to face ninjutsu experts in combat! It will stoke the flames of your youth. I am proud to see how much my rival has taught you, young Naruto!"

"Your… rival?" he managed to confuse me.

"Your sensei, Kakashi, is my most youthful eternal rival!"

I cut him off before he could continue, "Actually, Kakashi hasn't taught me anything. The lazy bastard is always reading his book. It's obvious that the flames of his youth are guttering out," I nodded sagely. As Gai sputtered at the thought, I grabbed Hinata and flickered out, leaving a clone behind to free Tenten. "We'll see you two tomorrow, training ground seven at four! Afternoon, that is!"

Flickering into stillness in the alley not far from the Hyuuga mansion where I usually dropped Hinata off, I set her gently on the ground. "Whoo, some characters, huh? Tomorrow's going to be crazy fun, I'm sure. Lee has been training hard with your cousin, so I'm sure you can pick up some ideas from him, and Tenten needs to realize the limitations of using just weapons. Oh, and Ino needs a kick to the butt to wake her up to the ninja world," I managed to elicit a giggle from Hinata with that last comment.

"Oh," I materialized a small paper bag out of a storage seal, "you mentioned baking last week, so I decided to try some. Let me know how it came out. Ja ne!" I flickered away, not really ready to deal with her feelings. What were you supposed to do with a girl, other than the sex thing, which seemed a bit yucky and frighteningly intimate? The books mentioned something called masturbation, and I did get hard down there in the mornings, but it went away with the shower, and nowadays I always went to sleep wrung out of energy.

On further consideration, I realized that Hinata and I had been sort of dating for a week, and now I'd ruined it by bringing in other people, grrrr. Sparring and training together was sort of dating for ninja, it made sense to me. So I somehow needed to spend time alone with her, but the week was almost entirely taken. Perhaps I could come up with something for the weekend, I shrugged. Girls liked… fluffy things, chocolate, ice cream? There was that 'romance' thing mentioned in a few fiction books I read, but I didn't understand what it was all about, it was somewhat confusing, all about atmosphere, affection, love, feelings. Kisses, maybe?

Deciding that I really needed to consult someone about this, I checked the very small list of people who'd be willing to listen and crossed most of them off. The old man was just no, Iruka was too embarrassing, Teuchi would just laugh it off and tell me to speak to Ayame, and Ayame…

Trying to talk to her about it left me more confused than ever. What did moonlit walks and flowers have to do with anything? Gifts, compliments and even food she liked seemed to turn Hinata a deep red more than anything else. And talking to her, talk about what exactly? If I mentioned that I liked her, she'd just faint. Kami, at least the ramen helped, Ichiraku's was as heavenly as always. Damn all girls, anyway.

I decided to just put it off until I came up with a good idea. Maybe stay her friend for a while and buttress her confidence? It was probably better not to have her as a girlfriend, at least not until I figured out her clan's position on dangerous little me. Trusting her by telling her about the fox was probably a step in the right direction, I nodded thoughtfully to myself before going back to training. If I had to spend time around Rock Lee, I needed that genjutsu protection seal, the sooner the better.

**Comments Response:**

_when do you plan naruto claim his uzumaki money legacy to hiruzen? or reveal himself?_

_At a moment Danzo should notice that all uzumaki scrolls and weapons has been stolen from his HQ._

_When naruto will see kurama? As outcast that never understood, they could become friendly (and naruto shouldn't hold grudge to the fox after learning that he was under genjutsu and the fact he didn't blame him but the hypocritical, traitor and hateful village for his hard childhood)_

There is no Uzumaki money to claim, and Naruto has no intention of revealing himself - the invasion will show off some of his abilities.

Danzo stuck the things he couldn't use and forgot about them - why would he suddenly have anyone check?

Should the day come that Naruto needs to use demonic chakra, he'll meet Kurama - but the whole idea of making him capable is not resorting to desperate measures. I haven't plotted as far as that meeting, not sure if he ever will. My present notion is that he'll fix his seal somehow - cut off the demon's consciousness from its power, allowing him free and full access without an annoying and bloodthirsty demon. Kurama isn't friendly at first, so he'll come across as an enemy. Let me know what you think.

_liked how naruto doesn't spend too much time on going to team training. it would be great to know how naruto clone acts around the team in order to not let kakashi get suspicious of his improvement from dead last. (does naruto still act like sasuke can beat him in spars?)_

Added a paragraph to address that, hope you like it… ;)


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: First Wave

The next four days went swimmingly. Like swimming hard against a rough, icy cold current. Well, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but Kakashi was pretty pissed at me for setting Gai on him.

Fortunately, he still had yet to notice that I was sending a clone to face him and my teammates, upgrading from an earth and shadow clone combo to rock and shadow, much more durable and possibly even tougher than the real thing. The next step in earth manipulation was adding iron to the clone, but I was months away from reaching that level of mastery in earth, unless I somehow acquired the steel release bloodline.

Not-sensei's irritation meant experiencing his choice of the most tedious, annoying and uncomfortable missions available, if only second hand - and forbidden to use clones "for training purposes". Yuh, right.

Adding Ino to our training regimen wasn't any complication, she simply went through physical and chakra training with a clone, polishing up the basics and improving her speed, stamina, chakra control and reserves, her whining about the torture disappearing after a single conversation and spar with Rock Lee, who frankly was the issue, if not quite a problem.

During most of the time we had allotted for training, I had Lee help Hinata, since he usually sparred with Neji and was thus very familiar with the classic Hyuuga tactics, encouraging the girl to use her jutsu to teach him how to deal with something new, while I played with Tenten. Hinata and I actually managed to help him find a way to deal with genjutsu. First, he had to realize the possibility that he'd been caught in one, and practice against Hinata was helpful in that. Then, he could use the least comfortable manner of dismissing it - pain. I showed him a pressure point that he could hit that would hurt a lot without momentarily paralyzing him, and Lee had no problems fighting past pain.

Training with the bun-haired girl was a lesson in humiliation for her, as I demonstrated what wind could do against weapons, how effective lightning was when your opponent held metal items, and generally how each of the elements had an almost perfect defense against her primary weapon, thrown sharpness - and with basic low-cost C and D-ranked jutsu, at that. A directional pulse for the D-rank and in all directions for the C-rank, other than Earth, which simply erected walls or used earth armor to provide for immunity against the small thrown stuff.

Even up close, I demonstrated how dangerous jutsu could be, and on the second day, Hinata showed her what even low-ranked genjutsu could do - the girl had worked extra hard and managed to get three useful ones going, only to be disappointed when I explained my defensive seal - in strict confidence.

Tenten was far from discouraged, however, as I showed her what she could do. She seemed almost gleeful at learning more fuuinjutsu, specifically explosive seals and their variants, and was also happy to discover that she was fire-natured. I piled her up with sealing books, elemental training and basic jutsu, adding earth to fire after explaining the requirement for jounin - and informing her that she desperately needed defensive jutsu, as she was hardly the only long-ranged fighter around. She was happy enough to work on things in her own time, sparring with everyone and helping us increase our proficiency with all of our weapons.

Tenten actually kissed me when I provided her, Hinata and Ino with gloves threaded with seals that held dozens of shuriken and kunai that required the smallest pulse of chakra to drop one into your hand, or a larger pulse to send one flying at respectable velocity in the direction your arm was pointing. Hinata almost sent her to the hospital after that, and I made sure they didn't spar for the next day to settle things down, and asked Hinata later in private if she could make time for me during the weekend, as I had something to show her and something to tell her, both important. It was almost painful, how happy she was a the prospect, and I realized we really were almost kindred souls - except that I was nowhere near as nice. Though she'd showed another aspect of her when she took Tenten apart… perhaps we were not that different when fighting for something we cared for.

It was the next morning, exercising in the training room in my home, that I was caught by surprise. The clone I'd sent that morning to waste time with Team Seven replaced me, and suddenly I appeared in one of the bathrooms in the Hokage tower, as memories slotted in smoothly. It appeared that the last four days had broken through Sasuke's mask, and he lost his patience when Kakashi requested another noisome D-rank, ranting about Uchiha honor, improving his skills and demanding a better mission. My clone couldn't really do anything other than support him, not without getting everyone deadly suspicious.

I shifted my clothes into the shinobi uniform my clone had worn, as I usually exercised in just boxers at home, and quickly joined the others in front of the Hokage.

"Ah, sorry about that, he," I acted embarrassed, adjusting myself with attempted discretion. "A C-rank mission, right? So what did I miss, what's our mission? Are we protecting a lord, or a princess, ha?"

"We're protecting him, baka!" Sakura shouted, pointing at the old, bearded man with the backpack, who was openly clutching a bottle of the hard stuff.

"This is my protection? A bunch of brats? Especially that pink-haired one with the forehead, are you really a ninja?" he called out.

I bit my lip to avoid laughing out loud as Kakashi jumped in to keep Sakura from beating our client, especially once Sasuke tried to reassure him, telling him how lucky he was to be escorted by one of the all powerful Uchiha.

"I am the super expert bridge builder Tazuna," our annoying, half-drunken client announced. "I expect you to provide me with superior protection until I get back to my country and complete my bridge."

"And what is so funny?" Sasuke demanded, ignoring Tazuna's slightly slurred words.

"The Uchiha being a powerful clan, that was one of the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard," I couldn't help chortling.

"I suppose a clanless orphan wouldn't understand," Sasuke tried to deflect.

"Clanless? Oh no, the Uzumaki are the greatest clan in the history of the Shinobi world. In fact, we had the first of the Shinobi villages, Hashirama took example from us - his wife? Mito Uzumaki, she stood with him against the traitor Madara Uchiha and the Nine Tails. Tell me, Sasuke, if you think your Uchiha clan is so great, what have your kin accomplished? Anything positive? I've read many history books, and all I've learned of your clan are tales of treachery and betrayal of the foulest sort, and not even successful treachery. The only Uchiha known far and wide are Madara and Itachi, traitorous murderers. And I assure you, the Uchiha name is only loved in Konoha since your clan's massacre. After all, no one likes a thief, and the Uchiha are a clan of thieves, with nothing original to your name. Unless, can you come up with anything positive your clan has accomplished? Anything good or worthwhile?"

Red in the face, hand on a kunai's hilt, only the presence of the Hokage kept Sasuke from attacking me outright. "Oh, and what made the Uzumaki so great?" he demanded with a snarl.

"The Uzumaki are the masters of seals. Even today, Konoha's security and power relies on Uzumaki seals, from the village barrier to the security seals in the Hokage's chamber, electrical power and the strength of the great gate. Seals are the highest of the arts of the shinobi. They can bind gods and demons, they can remake and unmake with few limits beyond those of their creator. The Uzumaki were Konoha's greatest allies, and if my mother or Mito were alive, many here would die painfully, or be sealed away for an eternity of torture for the thousand, thousand ways Konoha has betrayed my clan, isn't that right old man?" I stared him in the eyes for a moment, so angry that I had to resist an urge to start killing, my chakra rising. I calmed almost immediately, startled, when a reflection showed my eyes to be glowing red. It was only much later that I realized how much killing intent I'd been leaking.

"As for how great we were, Uchiha - the only reason Konoha won the second shinobi war was because Iwa, Kiri and Kumo, together with half a dozen lesser village, spent more than half their strength against our small clan. Remind me again, how many did it take to exterminate your clan? How many fell in the doing of the deed?" I twisted the knife.

Kakashi had to grab his arm to keep Sasuke from attacking me outright, and the killing intent he was releasing had our client pale-faced and sweating.

"Two hours, at the gate," Kakashi signalled me to leave, and rather than flickering away before witnesses, I replaced myself with a short-lived chakra construct I created outside the window, making the hand-signs obvious and genin-slow.

Damn, I shouldn't have let my temper show, I remonstrated mentally with myself, flickering home the instant I passed out of sight, and started pumping out clones. So many targets, so much to do when I was beyond blame. This night would be long remembered, and I had no doubt that the deaths of most of the civilian council (other than the three members my blood clones controlled most tightly), many shinobi who'd acted against me (including almost all the academy instructors) and the end of Root signifying a new and better age for Konoha. Almost as important, the old man would probably forget my outburst in the distraction of paperwork.

Damn again! I popped off another couple of clones to pack for me, took out the mantis summoning scroll, and sent a small wave of clones to locate Hinata. It wasn't that long of an escort mission, I was certain, but there was almost no chance of us returning this week. Our date was spoiled. Damn that Uchiha.

"Hey, Kurenai! Do you mind if I borrow Hinata for a few minutes?" I interrupted team eight's mission. "We had a date set for this weekend, and now I have an escort mission outside the village."

"Date?" her pale eyes went wide, her skin turned pasty white, and Hinata collapsed in a faint. I was there instantly, catching her and flickering away with a salute to the really gorgeous crimson-eyed sensei of team eight.

"Hinata," I looked down into her eyes, sitting cross-legged near her supine form. I'd put her down on the grass in a small cul-de-sac near a pond, a very pretty and isolated area. "Sorry about embarrassing you next to your team, you don't have to think of it as a date if you don't want to. Anyway, I wanted to share a little secret with you, and I might as well give you the time to think it over. You see, when the fourth Hokage…"

"The Kyuubi, yes, I know," she cut me off with a sharp-edged whisper. "I've seen its chakra within you sometime, you know, it's an unpleasant burning red. Yours is beautiful, a bright blue."

"Oh," I didn't know what to say. She knew, and she obviously didn't care. Hinata really was special, not to mention smart. Not having any words for the occasion, I jumped straight to the next secret, "Summoning Jutsu!"

The smoke faded to reveal a large and intimidating six-foot tall green-chitin covered mantis, forelimbs raised in preparation for combat.

"Hey Touroukari! Just brought you over to introduce you to your next summoner, if she's interested. So, Hinata, I found the mantis scroll, and thanks to you I've been working with them. If you want, you can sign the scroll," I brought it forth from where I had it sealed, unrolled it, and offered the stunned girl a kunai and a writing implement. "You have to sign in blood, for now it'll be just the two of us as summoners. You are interested, right?"

The slight movement to withdraw the proffered scroll brought her out of her daze.

"Yes!" she hurried, cutting a bit more deeply than necessary before signing.

"Anyway, Tourou, Hinata, I really have to go - so go ahead and learn about each other. Hinata, ask him anything you want to know, the mantis make for really great friends. They're much like you in combat, fast and deadly, and I'm sure there are at least a few who're good with water. Practicing with them can really sharpen your style. Oh, and I'd prefer if you can keep it secret from Konoha, but I don't mind if you let your family know, if you want you can tell them I own the scroll - after they promise not to tell anyone. This isn't an important secret, and it's a good way to learn if the can keep any. Ahem," I thought about it, "Come to think of it, this is something you can also test Ino and Tenten's discretion on. Not Lee, I don't think he can keep a secret, possibly not even to save his life, ha," I laughed a bit, waved a hand at her, gave a small bow of respect to the mantis, "I'll see you when I get back, we'll see how much stronger we can get!" I flickered away with a final "Farewell!"

Feeling vindictive on the way to the great gate, I memorized the faces of each and every person glaring at me or muttering about the 'demon' - or doing both, for that matter. The clones I was leaving behind, with plenty of chakra storage seals for a second or even third round of mayhem, would reward them properly. Having noticed the effectiveness of crotch-stomps against the Uchiha, I wondered what they'd do the women - and also decided to burgle their homes clean of everything while I was at it. It would certainly serve to confuse and divide the investigative efforts, and my clones were very good at not leaving a trace.

Traveling with a civilian felt like moving at a slug's pace, and almost drove me to distraction. The cold glares from my teammates and the disapproval wafting off Kakashi didn't help. I compensated by increasing the weights and resistance seals, and running circles around our little party, having replaced the Naruto they interacted with with a solid clone. It also gave me a lot of time to think, plot and strategize.

My sealing studies were going extremely well, my heritage serving me as it should or perhaps even better, given the Yondaime's accomplishments and skills, and that would always continue to be a subject of study. Sealing at the higher levels seemed more art than science, requiring a special touch, a tinted or skewed perception, perspective and understanding that were probably rare. That's what the books said, at any rate, and I was once again happy to be different.

Genjutsu and medical were a pain in the ass, requiring extremely precise use of chakra even at the lower levels. To get anywhere with either or both, I was going to need to up my chakra control levels to somewhere between insane and oh-Kami-kill-me-now. Even with a hundred clones working day and night, I simply wasn't good enough for more than C-rank techniques, and even there I'd probably suck. Of course, given that a mere two months ago I was completely incapable of using any genjutsu or medical techniques, it was a massive improvement. It would simply require persistence, once I started working on it.

Unless, of course, I managed to improve my training methods. Shadow clones were the basis of it all, and they were not very efficient. If I could find a way to improve the memory transfer and weed out the useless parts, I could use ten times as many clones without risking brain damage and have each breakthrough, even the smallest positive step, instantly distributed to all the other clones - not to mention saving chakra by not having the clone dispel. The memory transfer effect was also vital for blood clones, which while loyal, were utterly independent. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to have any mental connection and was doing it wrong, but having their knowledge and being able to communicate with the blood clones was important.

Of course, having improved on the shadow clones once, and relatively easily, didn't necessarily mean that this alteration would come fast and simple. Considering that I would have to work on it myself for it to be done efficiently, I decided to dedicate half the coming weekends to that purpose, with the remainder half used for practicing with summons - both performed entirely without any chakra channeled to weight and resistance. It might be best to give my body some rest every now and then.

There was a lot of time to think, and I considered everything from the future of the Elemental Lands and how I wanted to shape it, to which doujutsu to pick. Originally, I was intent on acquiring the Hyuuga byakugan, the all seeing eye which in the head of a practiced expert could see ten miles away, read documents inside a storage seal and map the chakra network of the body. That was before I figured out that while the byakugan could be implanted and work perfectly, the same was not true of the copy wheel eye - figured out from trying to understand why Kakashi kept one eye covered. The only reason I could come up with was that some sort of conflict or interference with his genetic makeup meant that he could not turn it off, and the chakra drain could actually kill him if it was in constant use. Only someone for whom the Sharingan was compatible could use it safely, and I could have it in one eye, with another implanted with a byakugan. Since having the first meant that I was capable of transferring bloodlines, I didn't even need to steal the byakugan - I could pay for it with my own bloodlines, and the Kyuubi granted perfect regeneration would restore the eye donated to me. We weren't anywhere close to there yet, but if Hinata stuck with me, I could see it as possible. As for the Sharingan, I'd already acquired a lot of blood from my Uchiha teammate, and it was safely hidden in stasis in several highly discreet locations.

It was a pity that my prospects for medical studies were rather dismal, as the Sharingan might just be an even better training tool than my shadow clones, with perfect recall and jutsu stealing capabilities. Thinking about it made me wonder why the Uchiha achieved so little in their history, and understand why Konoha made such a big deal about it. It amazed me that the soft headed fools hadn't forced Sasuke to breed - and actually allowed him out of the village on possibly dangerous missions. It struck me as insanely careless, but I was long past attempting to understand what passed for logic in the eyes of my supposed superiors.

I considered much more than just my personal woes. Having read most of the history books available at the library, and having gotten a look at the truth behind the fanciful tales in the Root archives, I was intensely disappointed. My earliest wish and dream was to be a great ninja, but looking at shinobi and understanding what they actually were, how we functioned in human society, as little more than murderous mercenaries spending our best blood for the benefit of others… it felt like a vicious pain inside, that I'd actually looked up to previous Hokage as heroes.

Allowing Daimyos and feudal lords to control the real power in the lands while fighting each other for influence, prestige and the chance to receive more crumbs from weak and foolish nobles - all the while looking down on samurai, bandits and those very merchants and nobles that paid for their blood - ninja culture struck me as terribly twisted. Chakra was an incredible tool, and the main use it was put to was just incredibly wasteful.

I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to accomplish it, but I had every intention of destroying the ninja culture - not by killing them in droves, but by starving them economically. If merchants had guards that could handle bandits and ninja, if rulers had capable agents, well then no one would hire ninja from the hidden villages and scattered clans. Of course, many would turn to banditry, but I was sure that taking economic and political control of the Elemental Countries would allow me to remove the blemish ninja made upon the pages of history. The Sage of Six Paths did not intend for his children and students to become little more than brawling thugs, after enlightening them to the use and potential of chakra, of that much I was sure - however exaggerated the stories about him seemed. Created the moon, really!

Other than reports from Konoha, the most fun part of the journey were the meals. I had literally hundreds of hot, delicious meals sealed away in scrolls, while the others had to rely on the trail rations they brought, or by the second day, what they could gather and hunt. It wasn't bad, but compared to the heavenly fare I was enjoying, the wafting smells rising from the dishes driving them to distraction, my companions on the journey were eating sawdust. Not that I showed my pleasure in their suffering, of course, I simply ate quickly so as not to allow Kakashi the opportunity he was clearly seeking to steal any of my food, and departed their company to 'keep watch on the surroundings', incidentally leaving the bowl and the scent of heaven behind. I'd dealt with fear, hate and spite all my life, by comparison envy and jealousy made me feel warm inside.

We were only a day away from the coast when a perimeter clone dispelled and I was informed that a pair of nuke-nin hiding in rather ill-conceived ambush had been taken care of. Really, hiding in a puddle in the middle of the road when no rain had fallen! Even without the seal that

automatically countered any genjutsu that intruded on me, I would have seen through something that silly. It amazed me that the demon brothers, renegades from Mist, were classified as chunin. They were remarkably pathetic, hell, even Sasuke was better.

A couple of hours later, another clone updated me. After they woke up, I didn't even need to make any effort to interrogate the two, they boasted about their master Zabuza, demon of the mist, and the mincemeat he'd make of me, even openly naming their employer Gato. Then they clammed up, but I decided that they weren't worth torturing, well not for information. Orochimaru, for all his genius, was clearly an idiot. Kidnapping Konoha civilians to experiment upon went against one of the most important rules for a criminal - or so I learned from yakuza fiction - don't shit where you eat. That evening I clandestinely received two sealing scrolls with future experimentation subjects. Really, how else was I supposed to practice my medical skills? What other value did those two murderous thugs hold? It was really the best use I could think of for them, and I determined to prepare more prisoner scrolls, as Gato probably had many common thugs in his employ, and I was quite certain I'd need a lot of practice to get my medical skills up to snuff.

The thought of warning Kakashi crossed my mind, then went out the other ear. The lazy bastard would probably just break off and cancel the mission rather than risk his precious Uchiha, whereas actually meeting Zabuza would touch upon his pride as the better shinobi.

A day later, I was more than ready for the confrontation, eager for it in fact - my first chance to see A-rank ninja in combat. I had plans upon plans for my first real chance at shinobi battle - Mizuki and the demon brothers, to my mind, did not count.

Oh, this was going to be an educational experience, I smiled inside as Tazuna's friend inched the boat ashore.

**Comments Response:**

_Oh, and by the way, Will Wave arc be part of the story?_

I believe you have an answer to that.

_Infiltrating root just like that? You should put more emphasis on insect clones in that case. Still - too overpowered, too fast. _

Insect clones were mentioned - detailing everything would put even me off the story. As for Root, I see them as having very good security, but it being rote security. With no emotions, they simply do what they are supposed to, never re-examining what they once deemed as good enough, and Danzo is also supremely arrogant. Only the Aburame are, in my opinion, immune to infiltration. Naruto has spent several years by now working on security seals and has extraordinary natural talent for it, besides acting with supreme caution, step by tiny step. One of the reasons it wasn't detailed, the clones moved with extreme slowness and caution. If you have a specific concern, I'll be happy to address it - and amend the story if I think you have a point.

_From not knowing jutsus - to combining them.._

Combining jutsus is the simplest thing in the world for Naruto - simply have a clone nearby use another jutsu. Hinata has the control to actually do it herself, after she trains at it.

_Drawing resistant seals.. Too rushed._

Actually, those were simply copied - that's why he had to buy the vest. All you need for that is perfect calligraphy, which the clones worked hard for. I'm trying for consistency and internal logic - if you catch me at something I'll correct it. Probably… there is artistic license involved.

_Where did he learn of him having a bloodline?_

That actually isn't covered - it's prior to the story, merely mentioned. It makes sense to me that the fastest Shinobi in the Elemental Lands has the Swift Release, and bloodlines are generally inherited. If Minato can outspeed the Raikage...

_rofl, ruptured testicles..._

Thanks for the correction, implemented - it just seemed like the sort of thing Naruto would do.

_when is kakashi going to notice naruto skills?_

Personally notice? Possibly never. Know something about them? Probably post-invasion time.

_I noticed that you have Haku as a character tag...he is male in this Fic, right?_

Nope, female actually.

_1. A bunch of clone working on a single project is the same person doing the same thing and getting stuck on the same things since they all think the same. So even though 10 to 100 are training it should only count as 2 or 3 because most of the memories overlap and are repetitive._

Not quite - the clones, after all, are working together and aware of the issue - so they talk and each group pursues different ideas on how to do things - and communicate as soon as they make progress, either verbally or by dispelling. It's not effectively 100 on chakra training, but easily the equivalent of 15 - and once the memory sending technique is finished, the efficiency might well rise to 40%. It of course depends on what is being studied - pure academics is nearly 100% efficient, same for studying different seals.

_2. Clone motivation. Naruto in canon is a bad student, he is hyperactive and has a short attention span and skips allot in the academy, so how are we to believe that his clones are going to knuckle down and really work. He will have to make clones to crack the whip on his other clones and many of them will probably escape or disperse themselves._

Naruto is extremely training-focused, and I'm not playing him as a genius, merely smart. Idiot Naruto is not something I find attractive, and this one is channeling all his energy into training. He has realized that academic knowledge matters, and his clones are just as focused on improving. Besides, some of the training is actually fun - trying new jutsu and seals, the "awareness training" games, setting traps and getting around them, fooling people and stealing from those who hate him. His reading speed has also much improved, however boring merely reading books can be for him.

_3. Active resistance. People will work against Naruto, they will try and keep him out of the library and training grounds and may even go out of their way to seek out and kill his clones for fun and revenge. Also once it is known that he is using clones they may blame him for crimes that he did and didn't commit, since an alibi is now useless._

His clones are henged into many different shapes when visiting the library, and train deep in the woods - including the forest of death. Not a single clone ever wears his shape while training, as part of the stealth and infiltration workouts. The only time he publicly used many clones is against Mizuki and Kakashi in the test, in sparring he rarely calls up more than nine, three teams of three actually working as a team.

_4. Endurance. Clones will run out of chakra and get tired because they don't have a Biju giving them energy and eating and resting shouldn't help them since they are just chakra constructs. So until they can absorb chakra in some manner they should run out of gas after only a couple hours each, unless overcharged when made._

Depends on which clones - those practicing jutsu, probably, the rest can last for ours, so he overcharges those who study jutsu. In any case, no group of ten ever lasts more than five hours, either they replace themselves, or he replaces them - to avoid mindburn. I'm trying to avoid focusing on clone training, beyond the initial detailing, I believe it should remain in the background, just the occasional mention of useful advancements, something specific to study and implement, or anything big (like working out Hiraishin). And yes, there are of course gaps of time when there are many fewer clones working, if he's busy and cannot hide and call up another horde.

_5. Naruto doesn't know the basics. This hurts all his self training in canon. You have an AU Naruto using war-time academy books and hiding his real capabilities to get around this, learning tree climbing and water walking before out of the academy._

Exactly - remember, Kakashi, Gai and Itachi came out of the war-time academy, and got powerful very quickly. It even made sense that the store would sell him books that don't fit the classes he's taking.

_One thing that I'd like to see someone do is a Naruto that realizes that with his clones he is a one man army and instead of training to fight as an individual like ninja do, train instead to fight as an army like Hoplites do. Maybe reading about the 300 Spartans and learning to do shield wall and spear formations, using Spatha type shortswords, bows, javelins, pikes, and polearms._

I did mention using bows as samurai do, but formation fighting is suicide against area of effect ninja techniques. Even just Tsunade shattering the earth - hell, it would make Sasuke's fireball attack deadly. I also mentioned his clones fighting in squads and training in groups.

_might want to break up the paragraphs where Naruto is talking because they make it seem like his a damn chattabox (at least in my opinion)_

Good of you to notice - Naruto is a chatterbox, and I was trying to convey that without describing that outright! :)


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